#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special

Michael Malice is a political thinker, podcaster, author, and anarchist. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Policygenius: https://www.policygenius.com/ – MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lexpod to get 15% off – Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off – Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/michael-malice-7-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Michael’s Community: https://malice.locals.com Michael’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MichaelMaliceofficial Michael’s Website: http://michaelmalice.com/about Your Welcome podcast: https://bit.ly/30q8oz1 Jake Michael Singer (sculptor): https://instagram.com/jakemichaelsinger Books: The White Pill: http://whitepillbook.com The Anarchist Handbook: https://amzn.to/3yUb2f0 The New Right: https://amzn.to/34gxLo3 Dear Reader: https://amzn.to/2HPPlHS PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (10:15) – Beauty and mantis shrimp (14:43) – Parrots, Pirates, and Monty Python (20:55) – Humor and absurdity (28:16) – Thanksgiving (56:56) – Unboxing the mystery box (1:12:54) – Karl Marx and religion (1:21:11) – Art (1:25:25) – Books (1:38:02) – How to be happy (1:40:12) – Depression (1:41:15) – Fear (1:42:42) – Betrayal

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, anarchist and author of Dear Reader, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook, The White Pill. And he is the host of the podcast, You're Welcome. This is a Thanksgiving special of the Pirate and Ocean Going variety. So once again, let me say thank you for listening today and for being part of this wild journey with me. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Policy Genius for life insurance, MasterClass for learning, Shopify for shopping,

• 0:44Lex Fridman?

  BetterHelp for health and Aidsleep for naps. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just get in contact with me, go to lexfridman.com/contact. Like the movie, except I'm not an alien, allegedly. And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these things interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please do check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Policy Genius, a marketplace for finding and buying insurance. Life insurance makes me think of Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics.

• 1:28Lex Fridman?

  I, of course, think about the Roman Empire many times a day. Marcus Aurelius is one of the great emperors and also one of the great philosophers that came from the long history of the Roman Empire. A quote from Marcus Aurelius, "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them." He, like many Stoics, emphasized the importance of

• 2:00Lex Fridman?

  Living deeply each moment that we get in this too short life. And to meditate on the shortness, the finiteness of it, on death. That one day, there will come a moment when we take our last breath. Thinking about this moment clarifies just what matters. Thinking about life insurance is yet another way for me to think about the fact that this thing ends. And you should contemplate the implications of that. The pragmatic and the philosophical.

• 2:44Lex Fridman?

  With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com. This show is also brought to you by MasterClass. $10 a month gets you an all access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. There's so many incredible options, many of which I've watched, many of which I haven't watched, but can't wait to watch. For example, one I haven't watched yet that's in my queue is Mathematical Thinking by Terrence Tao.

• 3:28Lex Fridman?

  This is one of the greatest living mathematicians in the world. And him philosophizing about the big picture of mathematics, which is incredibly valuable, especially given the fact that he really hasn't done anything like this anywhere else. For me, as a person that loves math, just, I can't, I can't wait. But the problem is, there's so many other options. That's the thing I really recommend, is to focus and really dedicate yourself to a particular masterclass. And as long as you're getting value from it, keep going until the end. Don't skip around. Finish.

• 4:12Lex Fridman?

  Phil Ivey on poker strategy. I've talked about Daniel Negrono, but Phil Ivey has a poker masterclass and that's another totally different orthogonal kind of genius. Even if poker is not your thing, it's just fascinating to see one of the best, if not the best poker players in the world, talk about how they think about the strategy of poker. All of it is fascinating. Anyway, get unlimited access to every masterclass and get an additional 15% off of an annual membership at masterclass.com/lexpod. That's masterclass.com/lexpod. This show is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere.

• 4:57Lex Fridman?

  And when I say anyone, I mean even people like me. It took me no time to set up a store and to put swag, to put some t-shirts on there with some Lex-related imagery for the folks who are into that kind of thing. I personally like wearing t-shirts that celebrate a podcast or a band or, or a book, author. It's a cool way to start a conversation. I think I have Space Odyssey shirts and Blade Runner. All of these have started conversations.

• 5:34Lex Fridman?

  People come up to me and it's an efficient and fun entry point into an intense, passion fueled discussion about a particular sci-fi topic or book or whatever, whatever we're talking about. And of course, I have band shirts, famous ones and not so famous ones. I have many Metallica shirts. I have several Iron Maiden shirts and basically every other classic rock band. I have a bunch of Pink Floyd shirts, of course, as one must. If you pick up the guitar, you surely must own some Pink Floyd shirts. Anyway, Shopify is

• 6:15Lex Fridman?

  the way to sell those shirts and a place where you can easily buy those shirts. By the way, my Shopify store is lexfridman.com/store if you're interested. But you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/lex. That's all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H E L P, help. I, of course, every time I have to spell out help, think about Cast Away and Tom Hanks, who, by the way, got in touch with me and is considering doing the podcast,

• 6:58Lex Fridman?

  which he is one of my favorite actors. He has created some of the most iconic characters ever, some of the most incredible movies ever. I kind of aspire, when I grow up, I aspire to be Forrest Gump. But anyway, we all need help.

• 7:20Lex Fridman?

  We all struggle. Some struggle a lot. If you're listening to this and you're struggling, I just want you to know that I'm thinking about you and I'm grateful that you're here with us on this earth.

• 7:39Lex Fridman?

  We're in this together.

• 7:42Lex Fridman?

  I think there's a lot of ways to take your mental health seriously. One of them is to do regular therapy. And the thing about BetterHelp, it just makes that super easy to do. Talking in general, in all its forms, start a podcast. Talking deeply, one-on-one with a human being

• 8:04Lex Fridman?

  is really powerful for organizing your mind, the stuff on the surface and the stuff hiding in the shadows. As long as you're honest, deeply honest.

• 8:17Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, check them out at betterhelp.com/lex and save on your first month. That's betterhelp.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep and its Pod 3 mattress, the thing that brings me a lot of joy, whether it's for 20 minutes or for eight hours or for nine hours or for six hours. No matter the hours or the minutes, it allows me to have a cold bed surface with a warm blanket. It's an escape from the world.

• 8:49Lex Fridman?

  Much of the turmoil, the chaos in my mind can settle down and be alleviated through a 20 minute nap. I'll sometimes pop a caffeine pill and just take a nap. Then I'll wake up in like 20, 30 minutes, like incredibly energized and just clear of thinking. And all the troubles with which I went into the nap with are somehow gone to a different planet. Maybe every time you fall asleep, you actually transport into a different universe where the chaos in your mind has not yet had a chance to materialize.

• 9:33Lex Fridman?

  Unlikely, but entirely possible. Anyway, I really, really enjoy it. You can heat it up, cool it down on each side of the bed separately. Check it out and get special savings when you go to eightsleep.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Michael Malice.

• 10:15Michael Malice?

  The box?

• 10:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Michael Malice?

  The mystery box.

• 10:17Lex Fridman?

  I'm wondering what's in it.

• 10:17Michael Malice?

  There's something in that box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in what it symbolizes, and why it is here.

• 10:27Lex Fridman?

  Given the kind of human being you are, I'm terrified at what you find beautiful.

• 10:33Michael Malice?

  That's a good point. You kind of hit me with a curve ball.

• 10:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:37Michael Malice?

  Like, for me, the most beautiful, like, wildlife are what I call God's mistakes.

• 10:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:45Michael Malice?

  Because my friend came up with that term where she's like, you know, God made these disgusting animals, just threw in the bottom of the ocean. He's like, no one's ever gonna see this.

• 10:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you uh, you commented on Twitter about some creature, like a rainbow type creature.

• 10:58Michael Malice?

  The peacock mantis shrimp.

• 10:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 11:01Michael Malice?

  It's horrific, though. So it has, I think, eight legs, six arms, two punching claws, or spearing claws, depending on the genus, uh, two eyes, two antennae, two ear flaps, I don't know what they do. Um, and its punch can be as strong as a bullet. And the other type with the spears, divers call them thumb splitters. Because if you stick your finger near it, it'll cut your thumb down to the bone. So I had one as a pet. All night, I would hear banging on the PVC pipe. And I gotta tell you, they have the best eyesight of any animal, because they see like seven different ways. And when you make eye contact with this thing, it's, it's just absolutely terrifying. But you can eat them as sushi. They call them sea centipedes.

• 11:42Lex Fridman?

  But they're colorful and beautiful.

• 11:44Michael Malice?

  That species is, yeah.

• 11:45Lex Fridman?

  What was it like having one as a pet? And why did you do it?

• 11:50Michael Malice?

  Well, when you have a species that's that unique and that much of an outlier, you know, growing up, reading these books, watching these shows, I found this stuff so much more fascinating than like space, which is, you know, dead. Um, so to be able to have this specimen in your house and just observe its behavior, um, is just, just like an amazing thing.

• 12:13Lex Fridman?

  Why'd you get rid of it?

• 12:14Michael Malice?

  I didn't have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix.

• 12:17Lex Fridman?

  It died.

• 12:18Michael Malice?

  It had a problem molting once. Yeah, it couldn't molt correctly.

• 12:21Lex Fridman?

  Wow. You miss it? Think about it still?

• 12:24Michael Malice?

  I do think about it, to be honest. I still have a pair of its, uh, punching, um, appendages from when it molted.

• 12:32Lex Fridman?

  What pet animal in your life do you miss the most? That has been in your life? That you think about?

• 12:40Michael Malice?

  I've never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that, which, you know, I, oh God.

• 12:47Michael Malice?

  My problem is.

• 12:48Lex Fridman?

  There we go.

• 12:49Michael Malice?

  If I like something, I will go down a rabbit hole.

• 12:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Michael Malice?

  So I know if I got one tattoo, I already know my first five are gonna be, okay? So I can't do it, because then, once I get those five, it's gonna be a hundred. And I'm already too old to be the tattoo guy.

• 13:06Lex Fridman?

  What would be the first tattoo?

• 13:09Lex Fridman?

  My face?

• 13:12Lex Fridman?

  Would it go on your ass cheeks? Or where would you put them? If it was my face?

• 13:17Michael Malice?

  If I got your face, it would definitely be on my arm right here.

• 13:20Lex Fridman?

  If you had multiple faces, would you put like?

• 13:23Michael Malice?

  I think delts, right? Shoulders, different faces and different shoulders.

• 13:25Lex Fridman?

  And then when you flex.

• 13:26Michael Malice?

  Symmetry.

• 13:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Would you get a dictator? If you, if you had to get a dictator, who would you get?

• 13:31Michael Malice?

  We have the Kim Jong Il, right? Cause I wrote the book on him.

• 13:35Lex Fridman?

  Oh, it's like the plugging your book.

• 13:37Michael Malice?

  I don't think plugging, it's just like, I have a personal connection to.

• 13:40Lex Fridman?

  Good opener.

• 13:41Michael Malice?

  To this.

• 13:41Lex Fridman?

  Conversation. People would be asking, why him? And then you'd be like, well, I wrote a book about it.

• 13:46Michael Malice?

  Well, I'd be like, oh, okay. Okay, here, here's why.

• 13:48Lex Fridman?

  Check it out.

• 13:49Michael Malice?

  That would be a bad, oh, no, that's not what happens.

• 13:51Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 13:52Michael Malice?

  Here's the thing.

• 13:53Lex Fridman?

  What happens?

• 13:53Michael Malice?

  When you write a book about North. Hey, nice to meet you. What is it you do? I'm an author. What kind of books do you write? Well, my last book was about North Korea. Ninety percent of the time, ninety. They will then start telling me everything they know about North Korea. And it's like, I don't need, this isn't a quiz. And it's a very poorly understood country. I don't expect you to know anything. You're not on the spot. And, and half what you're saying is not accurate either. It's fine.

• 14:17Lex Fridman?

  How often do they bring up Dennis Rodman?

• 14:19Michael Malice?

  A hundred percent.

• 14:20Lex Fridman?

  A hundred percent of the time.

• 14:21Michael Malice?

  Oh, so you don't, do you know Dennis Rodman?

• 14:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Michael Malice?

  But I, I don't understand what, I guess people feel the need to like, all right, like now we're talking about this subject. I just gotta, you know, drop whatever I can talk about. It's usually a small amount. And there's this thing in the culture, which I hate, that everyone have to have an opinion on everything. And it's like, it's okay to be like, yeah, I don't know anything about that. Tell me more, you know? There's lots of things I don't know anything about.

• 14:43Lex Fridman?

  What's your opinion on my bird here? Mr. Parrot?

• 14:48Michael Malice?

  It's a macaw. Scarlet macaw.

• 14:51Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 14:52Michael Malice?

  It is a scarlet macaw.

• 14:53Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you know, birds?

• 14:55Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And that's actually not life sized.

• 14:59Lex Fridman?

  Are you saying he's not real?

• 15:01Michael Malice?

  I was saying it's not to scale.

• 15:03Lex Fridman?

  Okay, but he's real.

• 15:05Michael Malice?

  Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?

• 15:08Lex Fridman?

  Everything is a Monty Python.

• 15:10Michael Malice?

  I don't think Monty Python's funny. And I.

• 15:12Lex Fridman?

  You don't?

• 15:12Michael Malice?

  At all, like not.

• 15:13Lex Fridman?

  That explains so much.

• 15:14Michael Malice?

  Does it? What does it explain?

• 15:15Lex Fridman?

  What do you think is funny?

• 15:18Michael Malice?

  You not answering that question is pretty funny.

• 15:21Lex Fridman?

  Well, yeah, what do you think is funny? Having a meta shrimp?

• 15:25Michael Malice?

  No.

• 15:26Lex Fridman?

  You think Big Lebowski is funny?

• 15:27Michael Malice?

  Oh, God, no. Although.

• 15:30Lex Fridman?

  This is getting worse and worse.

• 15:31Michael Malice?

  To be fair.

• 15:32Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 15:33Michael Malice?

  I only tried to watch Big Lebowski after it's been part of the culture for many years. To the point where every single line has been quoted incessantly by the most annoying frat bros ever.

• 15:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 15:47Michael Malice?

  So I kind of have been poisoned to be able to appreciate it.

• 15:51Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 15:51Michael Malice?

  So maybe if I'd seen it when it came out before it became a thing, I would have enjoyed it. I couldn't get through it. Like, I couldn't get through 20 minutes.

• 15:58Lex Fridman?

  Is that how you feel about Schindler's List?

• 16:01Michael Malice?

  Well.

• 16:02Lex Fridman?

  It's so much easier for me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on.

• 16:05Michael Malice?

  I didn't think you'd be the one making Holocaust jokes today. And yet, here we are.

• 16:09Lex Fridman?

  And cut scene. I actually have like no trouble making eye contact with you when you're wearing shades.

• 16:16Michael Malice?

  Yes, because you're a robot.

• 16:17Lex Fridman?

  Two, two copies of myself.

• 16:19Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Oh, you're seeing yourself in them?

• 16:20Lex Fridman?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:21Michael Malice?

  Okay, cool.

• 16:21Lex Fridman?

  I'm having a conversation with myself. It's not your fault, Lex.

• 16:27Michael Malice?

  They made you like this. You were just a good little robot in St. Petersburg.

• 16:32Lex Fridman?

  I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit, too.

• 16:35Michael Malice?

  Well, what do you find funny? Come on, this is an interesting subject.

• 16:38Lex Fridman?

  Well, I find Monty Python. I find absurdity funny.

• 16:41Michael Malice?

  Yes, I find absurdity funny. I think that's the thing. When people come at me, and maybe this is an Eastern European thing.

• 16:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Michael Malice?

  When they're like, how can you find this like very dark subject funny? It's like, well, the humor, first of all, the humor is that you're making fun of something that's dark. So already it's absurd. Like, it's completely inappropriate. Second, just psychologically, you know, Joan Rivers said that Winston Churchill said, I don't know if it's true, that when you make people laugh, you're giving them a little vacation. And I was just thinking about this the other day, how when I die, if I want my funeral to be a roast.

• 17:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Michael Malice?

  It doesn't help me that everyone's sad. If I brought people happiness or joy in life, whatever, I want to keep doing that in death. Your sadness doesn't help me. I know you can't help it, but tell stories of how it made you laugh. Make fun of me. Make me the punching bag, even literally take me on that coffin and be the. I don't make me a piñata. I don't care. So I, I think, and it's, it's, I don't understand. Well, I do understand, but it's sad for me when people are like, you know, this isn't funny. That isn't funny. I feel, the way I look at humor is the way, it's like a chef, right? It's pretty easy to make bacon taste good. With some of these really obscure ingredients to make it palatable, that's take skill.

• 18:00Michael Malice?

  So if you're dealing with a subject that is very emotional or intense, and you can make people laugh, then that takes skill and that's the relief for them.

• 18:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's all about timing.

• 18:14Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:19Michael Malice?

  What's the difference? You want to hear one of my jokes?

• 18:22Lex Fridman?

  Is it a pirate joke? Cause that's the only, that's the only kind I accept today. But now go ahead. It doesn't have to be a pirate joke. This one time.

• 18:29Michael Malice?

  Do you know who Leah Thomas is?

• 18:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:32Michael Malice?

  What's the difference in Leah Thomas and Hitler?

• 18:34Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 18:35Michael Malice?

  Leah Thomas knows how to finish a race.

• 18:39Lex Fridman?

  Very nice. Very nice.

• 18:40Michael Malice?

  Did I just get the gold medal?

• 18:41Lex Fridman?

  Good job. Well, why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet?

• 18:50Michael Malice?

  Why?

• 18:52Lex Fridman?

  Cause they spent years at sea.

• 18:54Michael Malice?

  Oh, I thought it was gonna be an R joke. That's a good one. I like that. When I was in North Korea.

• 19:01Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you know Dennis Rodman. It's a callback.

• 19:04Michael Malice?

  By the way, the thing that is very heartbreaking about the North Korean situation is that they have a great sense of humor. It would be a lot easier if these were like robots or drones. They have big personalities, big sense of humor and that.

• 19:21Michael Malice?

  Made it much harder to leave and interact with these people because it's, I mean, there's nothing more human and universal than laughter, and laughter is free.

• 19:28Lex Fridman?

  Are you saying there's humor even amongst the people that have most of their freedoms taken away?

• 19:32Michael Malice?

  Especially, I mean, again, we're from, you know, the Soviet Union, like, there's a anecdote, there's, I mean, Russian humor is a thing, because it's, there's nothing you can, this, if you can't have food or nice things, at least you can have joy and make each other laugh. I think about it all the time, and I think about my guide all the time, it's been, what, 2012, so it's been 11 years since I've been there, and she's still there, and everyone I've seen is still there. They just recently electrified the border, so you can't even, even the few people who are escaping can't do it anymore.

• 20:00Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's interesting that they still have a sense of humor. I attribute the Soviet Union for having that because of the, like, really deep education system. Like, you got to read a lot of literature.

• 20:10Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 20:11Lex Fridman?

  And because of that, you get to kind of learn about the cruelty, the injustices, the absurdity of the world.

• 20:20Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 20:21Lex Fridman?

  As long as the writing is not about the current regime.

• 20:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but I think, like, if you look at, like, African Americans, Jewish Americans, gay Americans, they are all disproportionate in terms of attributing to comedy. It's not because these groups have some kind of, you know, magic to them, it's that when you are on the outside looking in, A, you're gonna have a different perspective than the people who are in the middle of the bell curve, but also, when you don't have anything to lose, at the very least, you can make each other laugh and find happiness that way. So, you know, that is something that I think is an important thing to recognize.

• 20:55Lex Fridman?

  So what do you find funny? What makes you giggle, like, in the most joyful of ways? The suffering of others?

• 21:04Michael Malice?

  I mean, I, there are YouTube videos of, like, fat people falling down, and they're, they're really funny.

• 21:16Lex Fridman?

  There's two kinds of people in this world. Those that laugh at those videos, and those that don't.

• 21:23Michael Malice?

  And those that are in them.

• 21:26Michael Malice?

  My friend Jesse just told me a great Norm MacDonald joke. And this is a good litmus test joke because he says a certain group of people lose their minds. And a certain group of people just stare at you. And he goes this kind of, so I'll tell you the joke. This is Norm MacDonald. Guy walks into a bar and he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head. And the guy's like, dude, what happened to you? He goes, oh, you never believe this. I got one of those genie lamps and this genie. He's like, well, what happened? He goes, well, the first wish, you know, I wished for a hundred million dollars. He's like, yeah, you got it? He goes, yeah. He goes, it's in my bank account. Feels fine. He goes, all right. Well, the second wish, I wished to have sex with as many beautiful women as I want. And he goes, did that happen? Goes, yeah, it was amazing. He goes, then what? Well, I wished for a giant pumpkin head.

• 22:16Michael Malice?

  So there's a certain mindset that will just be staring at the screen. And that is, I mean, there's so many levels why that's funny, at least to me. And I just love that kind of.

• 22:26Lex Fridman?

  Well, Norm MacDonald is like, uh, just, I watch his videos all the time. He's, he's a guy that definitely makes me giggle. And he's one of the people that makes me giggle for reasons I don't quite understand.

• 22:39Michael Malice?

  Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O'Brien? Of making fun of Carrot Top?

• 22:44Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 22:45Michael Malice?

  He, this is probably the best talk show clip of all time. He's on with Courtney Thorne Smith. She was on Melrose Place and Conan O'Brien's the host. And Courtney's talking about how she's going to be an upcoming movie with Carrot Top. And Conan is like, oh, what's it going to be called? And she's like, doesn't have a title yet. And Norm goes, oh, I know what it should be called. Box Office Poison. And they're all laughing and she's like, no, no, no. Like the working title is Chairman of the Board. And Conan goes, do something with that smart ass. And Norm goes, yeah, board is spelled B O R E D. And they all just completely lost it.

• 23:20Lex Fridman?

  There's something about him with words spoken out of his mouth, with the way he like turns his head and looks at the camera.

• 23:27Michael Malice?

  I think he is one of those rare comedians who you really feel like he's talking to you directly.

• 23:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Michael Malice?

  He feels like he's winking at you.

• 23:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Michael Malice?

  In the audience. And he's like, can you, can you believe I'm doing this? Like, it's, it's like he almost, he feels like he's, I don't want to say imposter, but like, he's more a member of the audience than he is a member of the people on the stage.

• 23:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it feels like he's on our side.

• 23:49Michael Malice?

  Yes, yeah.

• 23:50Lex Fridman?

  Whatever the hell our means.

• 23:51Michael Malice?

  You know, Roseanne got him his first job.

• 23:55Lex Fridman?

  Roseanne, you and her been hanging out.

• 23:57Michael Malice?

  I got it. Oh, my God. Talk about Thanksgiving.

• 24:02Michael Malice?

  When you are talking to Roseanne Barr and making eye contact with this person, it is, I can't even describe it. It's just like, holy crap, Roseanne Barr is talking to me. She is, I've said this to her face, pathologically funny. Like, it does not turn off. And you're sitting there and you're like, holy crap. And when you make her laugh, which is that laugh that's in the theme song of her show, you feel like, okay, I did a mitzvah. I did something good and right in the world that I made Roseanne Barr laugh. And it's also really funny because, and she's gonna hate this, because I tell her she's adorable. She doesn't like that. She's little. You think of Roseanne Barr as this like force of nature, like a tsunami. She's like 5'3", I'd say like maybe 130.

• 24:45Michael Malice?

  Like, and she's, and she puts on the sunglasses. You think this little Jewish lady. You'd never know. This is one of the most epic performers of all time. She lives near here now. So it's just so much fun talking to her. There was an old satirical magazine in the, I think in like, early 2000s called Heeb, written by Jews. And she dressed up as Hitler for one of the photo shoots, and she was baking little men in the oven. I got, I found on eBay, I want her to sign it to Michael, it should have been you. But she signed it to Michael, you're one smart cookie. And now it hangs, love mom, Roseanne Barr, and I call her mom, and it hangs over my desk because I have her like good domestic goddess energy flowing at me.

• 25:31Michael Malice?

  What?

• 25:33Lex Fridman?

  What do you find? What else? So Norm MacDonald?

• 25:35Michael Malice?

  Norm MacDonald. My favorite comedian is-

• 25:37Lex Fridman?

  We agree on something.

• 25:38Michael Malice?

  My favorite comedian of all time is Neil Hamburger. So Neil Hamburger, I don't know if I'm ruining the bit. He's a character performed by this guy named Greg Turkington. So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses, holding three-

• 25:57Michael Malice?

  Glasses of water. Coughing into the mic.

• 26:02Michael Malice?

  And I remember I saw him once in LA. And the girl ahead of me, the table ahead of me was with her boyfriend, this basic chick, Pumpkin Spice. She turns to him and she goes, what is this? And I remember the first time he was on Jimmy Kimmel. And he tells one of his jokes. And he's like, um, uh, why does ET like Reese's Pieces so much? Well, that's what sperm tastes like on his home planet. And like, no one laughs. And he goes, oh, come on, guys, I have cancer.

• 26:32Michael Malice?

  And it just cuts to this marine in the audience with his arms crossed. So if you know what he's doing. It's just absolutely amazing. He opened for Tenacious D once in somewhere, I think in Ireland or the UK, one of those. And they're booing him because his jokes are often not funny. He's like, hey, where did my whore ex-wife run off to with that dentist she's shacking up with? I don't know, but when I see her in court next month, Alaska. So they're booing and he goes, all right, do you guys want me to bring out Tenacious D? They're like, yeah, do you want to see your heroes of mine, Tenacious D? Yeah, come on, let me hear it. Do you want to see Tenacious D? Yeah, he goes, all right.

• 27:13Michael Malice?

  If I tell this next joke and you don't boo me, I'll bring out Tenacious D. And it's like, uh, um, I'm trying to think of one that's not too, um.

• 27:24Lex Fridman?

  Self censorship is never good.

• 27:26Michael Malice?

  Okay. He goes, um, can we agree that George Bush is the worst president America's ever had? Everyone claps. He goes, which makes it all the stranger that his son, George W. Bush, was in fact, the best.

• 27:39Lex Fridman?

  I take it back on the self censorship.

• 27:42Michael Malice?

  So two people laugh and he goes, oh, that's amazing. I guess I'll do an encore. And he did 10 more minutes. It was just, just like, I love him so much.

• 27:50Lex Fridman?

  It's interesting they opened for Tenacious D. Jack Black, that's a comedic genius of a different kind.

• 27:56Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah. And he was in one of my favorite movies, Jesus' Son. It's this little indie movie. He did a great turn in that. He's really underrated as an actor. He's got a lot of range. Like, I know they kind of, kind of get types cast as this kind of one specific type, but he's really, really talented.

• 28:11Lex Fridman?

  But also just like the pure joy.

• 28:13Michael Malice?

  Yes. He's clearly having fun.

• 28:16Lex Fridman?

  Okay, it is Thanksgiving, so in a tradition, following tradition, what are you thankful for, Michael?

• 28:25Michael Malice?

  I got a Do you have a list too?

• 28:27Lex Fridman?

  No, not really.

• 28:28Michael Malice?

  Really?

• 28:29Lex Fridman?

  It's up in here.

• 28:30Michael Malice?

  Oh, I mean, but you have several things you're thankful for.

• 28:32Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 28:33Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 28:33Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 28:34Michael Malice?

  One of the things I'm

• 28:34Lex Fridman?

  My list comes from the heart. I don't have to write anything down.

• 28:37Michael Malice?

  Well, I don't have it written down.

• 28:38Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 28:39Michael Malice?

  One of the things that I'm most thankful for, this is a common answer, but I can back it up, is my family. Because my nephew Lucas is now six years old. And he, when kids have a sense of humor, it's like just miraculous. So he stole my sister's phone, his mom, figured out that grandma is listed as mom in the phone. And he calls her up and he's like, Michael's in the hospital. He's really sick. He didn't want to tell you. And she's freaking out. He goes prank. So I took him, Dinesh D'Souza just released a movie called Police State, which is actually really good, highly recommended. I was surprised how much I liked it. There, because he wasn't going Republicans, good Democrats, bad. It was just about authoritarianism.

• 29:24Michael Malice?

  And he had a movie premiere at Mar-a-Lago. So I'm like, I gotta bring Lucas to Mar-a-Lago. So Lucas is, I'm like, we're going to the president's house. He's like, oh, the White House? And I'm like, no, no, like a former president. He goes, oh, Abe Lincoln? And I'm like, okay, kid logic, like he's, he's giving logical answers. This is kind of like AI. You have to, you have to program it to, it's using logic correctly.

• 29:45Lex Fridman?

  You should have told him, as a president, that's second to only Abe Lincoln in terms of greatness.

• 29:53Michael Malice?

  Yeah. He went up to all the women in their ball gown, you know, evening gowns. And he goes, you're so beautiful. Were you born as a girl? So when you have this six year old asking you this, it was really, really fun. So that is a great joy to have a nephew, and I have another one, Zach, who's coming up in age. And he's starting to talk now. That is really, really fun.

• 30:19Lex Fridman?

  Getting to watch them. You know, find out about about the world for the first time.

• 30:24Michael Malice?

  And also training them like that. He he want. He loves being funny and having fun.

• 30:30Lex Fridman?

  You're you're his audience in a in a sense.

• 30:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but.

• 30:33Lex Fridman?

  Cause you giggle and.

• 30:34Michael Malice?

  I I can. We're prank bros. He gives me a high five. My family, and this is one you talk about what I find funny. These are things that actually enrage me when people, and this is such a WASP thing, don't just go with the joke. Or they're like, I don't get it, or they don't understand to just go with it. I was in the car with my sister when she was like 10, 12, whatever. She's much younger than me. She's like 12 years younger. And there's this species of squid, by the way, which is asymmetric. One of its eyes is very much bigger than the other because it swims horizontally. And so one's looking up, one's looking down with this more light. A shout out. If you want to learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.

• 31:13Lex Fridman?

  Octonation, shout out.

• 31:14Michael Malice?

  Shout out to Warren.

• 31:15Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot of fascinating stuff. Octonation on Instagram.

• 31:18Michael Malice?

  Yes. Um, I was in the car with my sister. She's like 10 or 12.

• 31:21Lex Fridman?

  Me as a pirate. I'm sorry for the rude interruptions. I appreciate that account especially.

• 31:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it's a great. Yeah.

• 31:27Lex Fridman?

  These jokes and thoughts are coming to me at a like a 10 second delay. So I apologize. Anyway, you were telling about the asymmetrical.

• 31:35Michael Malice?

  All right. Um, so I told my.

• 31:37Lex Fridman?

  Sometimes you need help.

• 31:38Michael Malice?

  No.

• 31:38Lex Fridman?

  The age is getting to you.

• 31:41Michael Malice?

  I was.

• 31:42Lex Fridman?

  Your skin is showing it. It's getting dark.

• 31:46Michael Malice?

  I told my sister, I go, when you were born, um, one of your eyes was bigger than the other and you had to have surgery to fix it. So she turns, she's like, Mom, and my mom goes, honey, the important thing is that you're beautiful now. That's all. It's like, what's the big deal? It was just a little surgery. And my sister's like, all right, calls grandma. And grandma goes, uh, she goes, Michael said that when I was born, one of the eyes, she goes, why is he telling you this now? It's not a big deal. You weren't. So the fact that everyone went with this.

• 32:16Lex Fridman?

  Oh.

• 32:17Michael Malice?

  Was I was so impressed. I was like, this is a quality family in this very specific regard.

• 32:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Michael Malice?

  Does your family have a sense of humor?

• 32:24Lex Fridman?

  Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Lex Fridman?

  You know, Soviet culture, there's like a dark sense of humor.

• 32:30Michael Malice?

  Very much so.

• 32:31Lex Fridman?

  There's a.

• 32:33Michael Malice?

  Wordplay.

• 32:33Lex Fridman?

  Wordplay.

• 32:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. Especially the Russian language allows for some like.

• 32:39Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 32:39Lex Fridman?

  Um, hilarity to it. There's also a culture of like poetry and like, uh, my dad.

• 32:47Lex Fridman?

  My mom too, but they they remember a lot of lines from books and poems. So there's just you could do a lot of fascinating references that add to the humor and the richness of the.

• 32:58Michael Malice?

  I feel like that's a very Russian thing, like at a party or maybe at a bar or something. I don't know where you'd meet people. These are such great.

• 33:05Lex Fridman?

  Never go out.

• 33:06Michael Malice?

  I meant in Russia. I meant these would be such good icebreakers. Right. You go up to someone goes, hey, did you hear this one? No, no, anekdot and you just tell him some little story.

• 33:15Lex Fridman?

  Did you say icebreakers because it's cold in Russia?

• 33:21Lex Fridman?

  I'm here all night.

• 33:22Michael Malice?

  That's where you never leave.

• 33:23Lex Fridman?

  Literally.

• 33:26Michael Malice?

  I feel like that's a thing.

• 33:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Michael Malice?

  And that's not a thing in America.

• 33:31Lex Fridman?

  Uh, you you mean like witty banter?

• 33:33Michael Malice?

  No, meaning you go up to stranger and like, that's your icebreaker. You tell him this little little joke. And since everyone kind of has the same sensibilities, right away you guys are chatting. I don't think that's a thing here.

• 33:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Michael Malice?

  Thing here, it's more small talk, which drives me crazy.

• 33:46Lex Fridman?

  So what else are you thankful for?

• 33:47Michael Malice?

  Well, what about what's something you're thankful for?

• 33:50Lex Fridman?

  Well, you went with family. I'm definitely thankful for family.

• 33:53Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 33:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Michael Malice?

  How, if I may ask, how do they react to you? Like, you're sitting down with Elon, you're sitting now with Netanyahu, you're sitting out with all these like big with Kanye, all these big names. Are they expressing that they're proud of you? Or is it more like, why haven't you talked to this person?

• 34:11Lex Fridman?

  More Michael Malice, please.

• 34:15Michael Malice?

  People's choice.

• 34:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, they're they're very proud. They've been very, they're very, I mean, but they get argumentative and we just, they're just like a regular human being with whom I'm close and we just argue about stuff. They're not, maybe not enough showed the being proud of, but that that part is just the nature of our relationship. It's also Soviet parents.

• 34:37Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I don't talk to my dad. That's one of the reasons because there's never ever any.

• 34:44Michael Malice?

  Good job. And at a certain point, it's like, why am I trying to search for approval from someone I'm never getting it for and from who it wouldn't mean anything at this point, anyway?

• 34:55Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's interesting. I mean, there's a journey like that for a lot of people with their father or with their mother, like they're always trying to find approval.

• 35:03Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 35:04Lex Fridman?

  And that's life for a lot of people.

• 35:06Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Lex Fridman?

  That's, that's a really big part of the human condition is that relationship you have with your father, with your mother. I don't know. It's a beautiful thing. So it's, whether it's been a rough childhood or a beautiful one, all of it, that's who you are. Like that, the relationship, especially early on in your life with your father, with your mother, is like extremely formative.

• 35:28Michael Malice?

  Yeah. My dad taught me a lot of things at a young age that I'm very, very grateful for. He was, he's extremely intelligent, very flawed, and that's fine. We all are, except for me. And it's the kind of things that when you learn things at a right age, and this is one of the things I like about being older, is that when I'm friends.

• 35:49Lex Fridman?

  Much older.

• 35:50Michael Malice?

  Much older. But much, much older. When I have friends who are younger, it's very easy for me to keep them from making the mistakes I did. So at least this is something I'm getting out of it is that, okay, I can't fix these mistakes, but it just takes me 30 seconds and I can pull you back from making the mistake. So he taught me a lot as a kid. He really encouraged me very much to, he's a very good sense of humor and also very bad in some ways, dad jokes, but also really funny jokes, but also this love of learning. I got that from him. And I mean, I have got literally right now 98 books on my shelf to read. It's just a life. And that makes me, I remember I had a friend and she ran

• 36:32Michael Malice?

  into someone she went to high school with and he stopped you on the train. And he's like, yo, you're not in college. You don't need to read books anymore. And I was just like horrified to hear this.

• 36:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Boy, don't I know it.

• 36:45Michael Malice?

  I mean, I mean, I, you do laugh, but like, I, when you got, there's a lot of things I don't understand. When you got heat for like, I want to read the Western classics, to me, that, that might've been like the internet at its absolute worst.

• 37:02Lex Fridman?

  I think there's just a cynical perspective you can take that there this is such a simple celebration of a thing that there must be something behind it. I think the internet, for good and bad, is just skeptical. Like, what's behind this?

• 37:17Michael Malice?

  My hero, Albert Camus, and if there's one thing I would want to fight, it's cynicism.

• 37:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Michael Malice?

  Because it's such a giving up, it's such, everything sucks. This sucks, that sucks, this sucks. Most things suck, most stand-up comedians suck, most movies suck, all podcasts suck.

• 37:35Michael Malice?

  But it doesn't matter.

• 37:35Lex Fridman?

  Especially yours.

• 37:36Michael Malice?

  Especially mine. It's unwatchable.

• 37:38Lex Fridman?

  You're welcome. You can't even spell it correctly.

• 37:44Michael Malice?

  But the stuff that's good is what matters. Who cares if 90% of movies are terrible? Like, they're the ones that change your life. The books, the people, the comedians, the shows, the music.

• 37:58Lex Fridman?

  And even the terrible things have good moments, beautiful moments.

• 38:03Michael Malice?

  Some, not all.

• 38:04Lex Fridman?

  Your podcast being an example of not all. I've literally just, I keep listening for something good. Something good.

• 38:12Michael Malice?

  In all fairness, none of my guests have anything to offer. It's not on me. I try.

• 38:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, I wish you'd talk a little less in your podcast. It's a little excessive. I only listen for the underwear commercials.

• 38:26Michael Malice?

  Sheathunderwear.com, probably called Malice.

• 38:29Lex Fridman?

  I think you did this, um, I haven't seen you do it in a while, but this kind of commentary on a debate? Or, um, I think it was with Rand, I think an Ayn Rand debate or something like this.

• 38:40Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, Malice at the Movies. I watched the video and I broke it down.

• 38:44Lex Fridman?

  That was really great. I wish you did that more.

• 38:46Michael Malice?

  I haven't done live streaming in a long time. I, it was something I was doing a lot in New York, especially during COVID. I feel that, um, I don't know, I'm having, I've got so many projects on the plate.

• 39:02Michael Malice?

  Oh, this is something else I'm thankful for. This is something I'm very, very thankful for, and I'm gonna announce it here.

• 39:07Lex Fridman?

  Coming out of the closet, finally. Go ahead.

• 39:12Lex Fridman?

  Who's the lucky guy?

• 39:18Michael Malice?

  You're the one in drag.

• 39:23Lex Fridman?

  Guns out, guns out.

• 39:24Michael Malice?

  He makes me, he makes me call him Sex Friedman.

• 39:29Lex Fridman?

  You like it.

• 39:30Michael Malice?

  So I didn't say it. Didn't even imply that. When I, in, as you probably know, as you know, but as many people watching this also know, Harvey P. Carr, who had the comic book series American Splendor, was the subject of the movie American Splendor. He wrote a graphic novel about me in 2006 called Ego and Hubris, which goes for like $150 on eBay. It's not worth it. Just download it. And I met Harvey because I wrote this screenplay about this band from the 80s called Rubber Rodeo. It's a real band. And the keyboardist, Gary Lieb, who passed away, rest in peace, Gary, introduced me to Harvey because he did the animation for the movie. And this script's

• 40:14Michael Malice?

  been in my desk for over 20 years. And I realized, thanks to my buddy Eric July, who has some huge success with his comics, I could just produce this as a graphic novel. So I've got an artist. We're getting it together. So I'm gonna make it happen finally. And it's some of the best writing I've ever done. I'm really proud of the story. It's kind of ironic reading it now because when you're a writer, obviously, you're different books, you put different aspects of yourself into them, right? And this story is very, very dark because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere, right? What I realized was, reading it now, that all these fears I had over 20 years ago about what if I'm not gonna make it? What if, you know, I'm doing all the hard work and it's

• 40:58Michael Malice?

  still not enough? Now it's been disproven because I can at least pay my rent.

• 41:03Lex Fridman?

  You feel like you've made it? As you said, you could pay your rent.

• 41:07Michael Malice?

  I feel that to make it is if you can pay your, if you don't have to have a boss. And you know how I really felt like I made it? This is gonna sound like a joke and it's not. This is being an immigrant. I own, as you know, Margaret Thatcher's bookcases.

• 41:25Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 41:26Michael Malice?

  So to me, as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in my house, I've made it.

• 41:32Lex Fridman?

  You're right. It's not a joke.

• 41:34Michael Malice?

  There's nothing funny about it at all.

• 41:38Michael Malice?

  Time to get serious.

• 41:40Lex Fridman?

  Oh, nice. Oh, now I'm more nervous.

• 41:44Lex Fridman?

  And aroused. So what else are you thankful for? So we're both thankful for family.

• 41:49Michael Malice?

  You, I mean, the fact that I can.

• 41:52Lex Fridman?

  Still get it up.

• 41:53Michael Malice?

  What's that?

• 41:54Lex Fridman?

  Nothing. Go ahead.

• 41:55Michael Malice?

  I think as an author, to be able to write what you want and have enough an audience that it covers your living, that's as good as it gets as an author almost.

• 42:10Michael Malice?

  You don't need to be Stephen King or some legend. It's like, you know, there's lots of standups who aren't like world famous, but they, they have perfectly good living. They do their gig. They'll do what they love. I, I feel very, very blessed. You must be thankful for your career.

• 42:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. Career wise, but like, uh, I think the best part about it is just meeting, making friends with people I admire.

• 42:33Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 42:33Lex Fridman?

  Quite honestly, just friends. I, you know, the people have gotten to know me. I hide from the world sometimes. I hit some low points, especially with this new, all the new experiences. And just the people that have been there for me and haven't given up on me.

• 42:47Michael Malice?

  You know, there's days, and I'm sure you had this also, where like, I literally don't speak to someone the whole day. And in certain times of my life, it's really, I remember very vividly, I, I was in DC in 97. I was an intern. And that summer, uh, DC closes down on the weekends. And I remember those weekends when like, I got off the phone with like the third person, I knew there was no possibility anyone was gonna call and what that felt like. And it was dark and it was bad. Um, so I, I remember that those feelings of loneliness, um, like a lot.

• 43:25Lex Fridman?

  I still feel alone like that sometimes. You don't feel, you don't feel alone?

• 43:31Michael Malice?

  Um, not anymore.

• 43:33Lex Fridman?

  What's the, what's the reason you think?

• 43:37Michael Malice?

  I because there's like, I have a lot of people who I care about, who care about me. I mean, the thing about moving to Austin is I forgot how lonely New York got because it was like one after another, I lost everybody. And a certain, and then you start losing the places you go to. And then it was just like, holy crap, I'm very isolated. And here in Austin, there's not as much to do, obviously, as in New York. But there's a lot of people here, more people are coming all the time. So if I ever want to like hang out with someone, you know, I've got a long list. And these are people who I've known for a very long time, people who know me quite well, so I could be myself, my awful, awful, awful, awful, awful self. And that is something I don't take lightly.

• 44:22Lex Fridman?

  I moved to Texas, it's gonna succeed.

• 44:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Lex Fridman?

  It's just a very.

• 44:27Michael Malice?

  Do you know what happened with that?

• 44:28Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 44:29Michael Malice?

  I forgot the guy's name, and it's probably for the best. Monday, on Monday, a guy in the Texas Legislature introduces a bill to have it on the referendum, to have a referendum for Texas to declare its independence. Tuesday, I'm on Rogan, me and him discuss it, I give it national attention. It was also really funny because a lot of people are like, these people have been in Texas for five minutes, blah, blah. I go to the Texas Legislature, meet with the guy, have a nice conversation. Month or two later, unanimous, I think, he gets voted, kicked out of Congress because he got an intern drunk and was inappropriate with her. And at least it was the girl in this case.

• 45:13Michael Malice?

  But yeah, so it's like, that was my little Texas independence moment.

• 45:17Lex Fridman?

  Oh, it didn't go anywhere.

• 45:19Michael Malice?

  It did not go anywhere.

• 45:20Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 45:21Michael Malice?

  But it's still part of the platform, the Texas Republican Party.

• 45:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's fascinating that history is probably laden with stories like this of failed revolutionaries. We celebrate the heroes, but then there's the losers, like.

• 45:34Michael Malice?

  Myself.

• 45:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Lex Fridman?

  And we're going to mark that one as a failure and edit it out. And moving on, so thankful, yeah, friendships, right? But by the way, I want to say just to you, I'm thankful in this lonely moments for people who write books. I've been listening to audiobooks a lot and reading a lot. I really like audiobooks, actually. And just like, I don't know, I can just name random person, Sergey Ploch, he's a historian I'm reading on the.

• 46:09Michael Malice?

  Wait, I read him. What do you, what do you?

• 46:11Lex Fridman?

  I just see he written a book most recently about the Russia-Ukraine war.

• 46:16Michael Malice?

  He wrote another one that I read. Didn't he write?

• 46:18Lex Fridman?

  Empires, I think.

• 46:19Michael Malice?

  The fall of the Soviet Union, something like that.

• 46:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it was very, very good.

• 46:22Lex Fridman?

  He's great.

• 46:23Michael Malice?

  I used him as a resource for the White Pill.

• 46:25Lex Fridman?

  He's objective while still having emotion and feeling to it. Like he has a bias.

• 46:29Michael Malice?

  That's fine.

• 46:31Lex Fridman?

  But without, a lot of times when you write a story that involves Putin, people are really ideological. They don't really like, they don't write with a calmness and the clarity and the rigor of history. There's emotion in it, like there's almost a virtue signaling.

• 46:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 46:51Lex Fridman?

  And he doesn't have that, even though he is Ukrainian and has very strong opinions on the matter. Anyway, there's people like that and he does incredible job researching a recent event. Like he says, I was looking at everything that's been written about the war in Ukraine and realizing, you know, the old Churchill line that historians are the worst ones to write about current events, except everybody else. And so he's like, I might as well just write about this war. And he does an exceptional job summarizing day by day, the details of this, this war. Anyway, so I'm just grateful for a guy like that.

• 47:31Michael Malice?

  For me, there's, I'll name some historians I love. Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastian is probably my favorite. David Pietrusza, P I E T R U S Z A. When you are a historian, and I tried to do this to some degree in the White Pill as much as I could, but yeah, when you take data.

• 47:52Michael Malice?

  And you make it read like a novel. This, so you're learning about who we are as people, what had happened, but also it's entertaining and readable. That to me is like the acme of writing and I have so much admiration.

• 48:06Lex Fridman?

  What does acme mean?

• 48:07Michael Malice?

  Top.

• 48:08Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 48:09Michael Malice?

  Zenith.

• 48:10Lex Fridman?

  Zenith, okay. This is what writers do, they just come up with these incredibly sophisticated words. I'm impressed.

• 48:15Michael Malice?

  Well, acme-

• 48:16Lex Fridman?

  Because you could have just said the best of writing.

• 48:18Michael Malice?

  Acme is also the company in like Bugs Bunny and Wild and Coyotes, so is Acme, you know, Acme.

• 48:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 48:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah, like Acme Bombs.

• 48:27Michael Malice?

  When they are that good, it's, it's just, it just, it just leaves me in awe.

• 48:33Lex Fridman?

  It's just the-

• 48:33Michael Malice?

  Ron Chernow is another one.

• 48:35Lex Fridman?

  Who?

• 48:36Michael Malice?

  He wrote the Hamilton biography.

• 48:38Lex Fridman?

  Oh, nice. Well, I, I have a lot of favorite historians about the whole time period of World War II. Bull and Shire, people that lived during it especially. I really like those accounts. Obviously Solzhenitsyn is, he's not a historian, but his accounts are-

• 48:56Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 48:57Lex Fridman?

  Fascinating. You actually, how, how much do you talk about Solzhenitsyn?

• 49:01Michael Malice?

  Never.

• 49:02Lex Fridman?

  Not much, right? Why not?

• 49:05Michael Malice?

  I feel like I wanted to, I, I, there's nothing I could add to him.

• 49:11Lex Fridman?

  Well, he did, he is the Michael Malice of the previous century.

• 49:15Michael Malice?

  No, he's talented, charismatic and skilled, so he's not the Michael Malice. Yeah, I, I did not, I feel like I didn't, I didn't, I didn't read Gulag Acapella go for the white pill.

• 49:28Lex Fridman?

  You didn't?

• 49:28Michael Malice?

  I didn't, no. I feel, I got a lot of it from Anne Applebaum, who's a very controversial figure. Her history books on the Soviet Union, I think are superb, but she's also accused of being very much like a neocon and being a war monger in contemporary times.

• 49:43Lex Fridman?

  Oh, I see.

• 49:43Michael Malice?

  And I think comparisons between Putin and Stalin, although there was a Venn diagram, I, I think are a bit much because I, I think it's very hard to claim that, you know, if Putin conquered Ukraine, that there'd be a genocide.

• 49:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Michael Malice?

  I don't think, I think that's a very hard argument to make.

• 50:00Lex Fridman?

  In these tense times, even the comparisons of what's going on in Israel on either side, comparisons to the Holocaust are also troubling in this way.

• 50:09Michael Malice?

  Yes, and, and I also don't like how that, you know, I got in trouble, there was some literal demon who works at the Atlantic and-

• 50:17Lex Fridman?

  As opposed to a regular demon?

• 50:19Michael Malice?

  As opposed to figurative demon.

• 50:20Lex Fridman?

  I didn't know they employed demons.

• 50:22Michael Malice?

  They exclusively employ demons at the Atlantic. And he was giving me crap this couple of years ago on Twitter because I didn't think it's appropriate to refer to George Soros as a Holocaust survivor.

• 50:38Michael Malice?

  And I'm like, listen, if you want to put him in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out. But I think that's so completely disingenuous and frankly repulsive to me morally to equivocate between figures like that. And also to claim that anyone who is a billionaire, who is including Elon, including Sheldon Adelson, there's no shortage of these people. If you want to use your extreme wealth used to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism. And to protect people, Bill Gates, to protect these people from criticism just on the base of their identities is deranged to me.

• 51:16Lex Fridman?

  But also the Holocaust as a historical event and the atrocities within it are just singular in history and sort of comparing them.

• 51:28Michael Malice?

  What's the utility? Right, you're just, you're just basically trying to take this brand, I'm using that term in a very specific way, and latch, like when they say climate denial, no one's denying climate exists. So you're just trying to go off of Holocaust denial. I think it's shameless. And I think it's gross.

• 51:45Lex Fridman?

  And it cheapens everything. Because there's deep, important lessons about the Holocaust.

• 51:50Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 51:51Lex Fridman?

  To me, the lessons are about how extreme it can get.

• 51:56Michael Malice?

  And how fast.

• 51:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:58Michael Malice?

  That's the one. So, you know, people ask, oh, are humans basically good? Are they basically evil? I always say they're basically animals. And I think people are, most people are almost fundamentally deranged. And that there's basically this veneer of civilization and decency. And when shit hits the fan, and we see this over and over, they do things that would have been completely unthinkable even to themselves five years ago.

• 52:27Lex Fridman?

  Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility.

• 52:31Michael Malice?

  There's a show called, um.

• 52:32Lex Fridman?

  I think I disagree with that.

• 52:34Michael Malice?

  What's the show called? I'm having Alzheimer's because of the advanced.

• 52:37Lex Fridman?

  The age, the skincare.

• 52:40Michael Malice?

  There's a show called, I Think You Should Leave.

• 52:42Lex Fridman?

  It's a sketch comedy show. Okay, sorry.

• 52:45Michael Malice?

  It's a sketch comedy show and he captures these great, has to hear Princess. He captures these great moments of just the like, just the very thin veneer of normalcy. And just the craziness that's so frequently lurking underneath. Another great example of this, when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy. Have you ever seen the show Hoarders? So every episode of Hoarders, every, there's two, usually two people in every episode, but every episode has the same plotline. Veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, slight expression of concern, full blown derangement. And it always follows that exact pattern.

• 53:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know. I think the deep ocean of the human mind is, is good. Like there's a longing to be good to others.

• 53:37Michael Malice?

  I have seen literally no evidence of this. And I know everything's a deep ocean with you people, but like.

• 53:42Lex Fridman?

  What do you mean you people?

• 53:43Michael Malice?

  Pirates.

• 53:44Lex Fridman?

  Oh.

• 53:45Michael Malice?

  I don't see it. You, you.

• 53:48Lex Fridman?

  What's that, Mr. Parrot?

• 53:50Michael Malice?

  You were.

• 53:50Lex Fridman?

  He's an anti Semite?

• 53:53Lex Fridman?

  No, that's not nice to say in front of such a large audience. You're embarrassing me, Mr. Parrot.

• 53:59Michael Malice?

  Lex, you have.

• 54:00Lex Fridman?

  What's that, Mr. Parrot?

• 54:01Michael Malice?

  You have.

• 54:02Lex Fridman?

  He's, he's a run of the mill troll and barely an intellectual. That's not nice to say. That's not true. We talked about this, you have to see the good in people.

• 54:12Michael Malice?

  You have seen personally.

• 54:14Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 54:15Michael Malice?

  How quickly and easily it is for human beings to form out groups.

• 54:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 54:21Michael Malice?

  And to just read others, just as I just did a minute ago with the Atlantic, completely out of the human race. And that happens constantly and very easily. Humans are tribal beings. So that does not, I don't see how that's compatible with this essential desire to do good.

• 54:39Lex Fridman?

  No, I, I think it's like in 1984, the two minutes of hate. There is a part of humans that wants to be tribal.

• 54:47Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 54:48Lex Fridman?

  And wants to direct, get angry and hateful. And then that hate is easy to direct.

• 54:54Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 54:54Lex Fridman?

  By especially people as you, as an anarchist, talk about little people in power.

• 55:00Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 55:00Lex Fridman?

  Direct that anger. But I think if you just look at recent human history, the desire for good, the communal desire for good outweighs that. I think like most of life on earth right now, people are being good to each other. It in the most fundamental sense relative to how nature usually works.

• 55:21Michael Malice?

  I, I, okay, I think you're both wrong about people and about nature. So nature is not inherently violent in the sense like, for example, if anyone has an aquarium or if you look at wildlife. Yeah, you're going to have predator prey, but these animals are going to be coexisting and they're going to be ignoring each other for the most part. Right? And as for humans, you know, being essentially good, I think humans are essentially to each other. You said, I think they're essentially civil and amiable, but that's not really being good.

• 55:53Lex Fridman?

  Good, I think is a thing that gets illustrated when you're challenged, when there's

• 55:56Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 55:57Lex Fridman?

  Difficult situations.

• 55:57Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 55:58Lex Fridman?

  I mean, civility is a good starting point. And then when there's a big challenge that comes, people step up on average.

• 56:07Michael Malice?

  I completely agree with you that human beings are capable of such profound goodness that it kind of makes you

• 56:15Michael Malice?

  extremely emotional. And I certainly think that that's true, but I think that that's more unusual than is the norm.

• 56:22Lex Fridman?

  I see beauty everywhere.

• 56:24Michael Malice?

  So do I, but that doesn't mean it's in every person.

• 56:27Lex Fridman?

  Not in every person, but in most people. I think, I mean, I wish there was a really good way to measure this. My general sense of the world is just, there's so much incredible, both in terms of economics, in terms of art, in terms of just creation as, as a whole, that's happened over the past century. That it feels like the good is overpowering the bad.

• 56:50Michael Malice?

  You just did the perfect segue.

• 56:55Michael Malice?

  To the box.

• 56:57Lex Fridman?

  What's in the box?

• 56:58Michael Malice?

  So.

• 56:59Lex Fridman?

  Is it your fragile ego?

• 57:01Michael Malice?

  That's my, you stole my joke. You stole my joke. That was the joke I made at you before we recorded. You stole my joke.

• 57:09Lex Fridman?

  Never did. I, I write you all your material, you hack.

• 57:14Michael Malice?

  So, as you know, I have a lot of beautiful stuff in my house because I think it's something very important, everyone listening. If you accomplish something that is great, some achievement, what I like to do is buy myself something to remember that moment. Because sometimes when it's hard, you forget you've done great things in your life. You've had accomplishments. Doesn't have to be some amazing factory. It could just be like my first job, or I got a raise, or you know what, I, anything. So, there's this amazing sculptor named Jake Michael Singer. Singer who's a sculptor. And I saw a piece of his-

• 57:59Lex Fridman?

  How's his singing voice?

• 58:02Lex Fridman?

  This is joke song. I-

• 58:03Michael Malice?

  Well, hold on, I could go somewhere with this.

• 58:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 58:06Michael Malice?

  How's his singing voice?

• 58:07Lex Fridman?

  Do you want me to write your joke for you?

• 58:08Michael Malice?

  Yeah, what's the punchline?

• 58:11Michael Malice?

  Hard. There it is.

• 58:14Lex Fridman?

  That's what she said.

• 58:15Michael Malice?

  So, I followed him on Instagram. He followed me back.

• 58:22Michael Malice?

  And he's like, if I made, he says, what's the point of being an artist if the work I create isn't in the spaces of people I like and admire? He's a big fan of yours. You've given him, and our episodes together, given him joy. So he said, if I get a, make Lex a sculpture, will he put it on the shelf behind him? And what that reminded me of is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics, and there's the Batcave. And the Batcave has all this cool stuff in it. I didn't realize until much later that all of those things in the Batcave had an origin story. So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a

• 59:05Michael Malice?

  story where that came from. So if you're a fan of a show, you can spot, oh, this is when this appeared, this is when that appeared, this and that appeared. So he made you this sculpture. He lives in Turkey. And it's called Chance Murmur. And it is, I haven't even seen it yet. It is absolutely beautiful.

• 59:22Lex Fridman?

  All right, just, so you want to do a little unboxing?

• 59:25Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 59:25Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 59:28Lex Fridman?

  Axe, or?

• 59:30Michael Malice?

  Body spray?

• 59:34Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 59:35Michael Malice?

  Let's do it.

• 59:36Lex Fridman?

  Unbox.

• 59:40Michael Malice?

  He likes this out of the box.

• 59:43Lex Fridman?

  You know, uh, that Steven Seagal movie where there's like a stripper that comes out of the box?

• 59:48Michael Malice?

  Uh, is that?

• 59:49Lex Fridman?

  Uh, under sea, he's on a boat.

• 59:53Lex Fridman?

  You're not an action film guy.

• 59:55Michael Malice?

  No.

• 1:00:00Lex Fridman?

  One.

• 1:00:02Lex Fridman?

  What does the pirate say when he turns eighty?

• 1:00:05Michael Malice?

  What?

• 1:00:06Lex Fridman?

  I made it.

• 1:00:09Michael Malice?

  I made it, oh.

• 1:00:12Lex Fridman?

  Oh. See, that's how I know you don't like humans.

• 1:00:16Michael Malice?

  I just don't like pirates.

• 1:00:18Lex Fridman?

  Well, your mom does. Do you play any musical instruments?

• 1:00:21Michael Malice?

  Nope.

• 1:00:23Michael Malice?

  Neither do you. I've seen your guitar videos.

• 1:00:27Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:00:29Lex Fridman?

  Here's a big piece of wood for you. That's what it feels like, just so you know.

• 1:00:34Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:00:38Michael Malice?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:41Lex Fridman?

  He's traveled across the world.

• 1:00:46Michael Malice?

  So here's why his work speaks so much to me. So first of all, he's combining so many different references. It's Nike, the goddess of victory, right? It's that, it looks like an angel as well. The Italian futurists, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century. They tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.

• 1:01:12Lex Fridman?

  Well, Jake, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for creating beautiful things. And I Thank you for caring about somebody like me and somebody like Michael, who really feels the love.

• 1:01:24Michael Malice?

  That's the other thing.

• 1:01:25Lex Fridman?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:26Michael Malice?

  When you have something that matters to you in your house and you're having a bad day, you can look at it and remember, you know what I mean, that spirit of joy. And I actually have a list here. Okay, I got a little rant ready. You want to hear my rant?

• 1:01:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 1:01:42Michael Malice?

  One of the things that drives me crazy is when people, especially conservatives, think that all contemporary art is ugly or abstract or like literally garbage. And there's a lot of that, but so much of the stuff out there in galleries is not only not crazy expensive, but they're trying to sell things for people in their house. And these are young artists, you know, they're trying to add beauty. I have a list. So if you don't believe me and you think all contemporary art is garbage or terrible, go to the website or any of these places that I'm going to rattle off, look through them, and you're telling me that that it's not about creating beauty and joy and things in people's lives. So I don't have any relationship with any of these people. These are just some galleries I follow on Instagram.

• 1:02:26Michael Malice?

  Utray Gallery, Antler Gallery, Giant Robot 2, Beinart, I don't know how to pronounce it, I'm sorry, B E I N A R T, Spoke Art Gallery, Var Gallery in Milwaukee, I was there. The pieces were not expensive at all.

• 1:02:39Lex Fridman?

  What kind of art are we talking about? Everything?

• 1:02:41Michael Malice?

  Mostly paintings, mostly paintings. Some sculptures too, like this. Corey Helford is my favorite one in LA. Night Gallery, Vertical Gallery, Avant Gallery, Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery, and Curio Art Gallery. I'm telling you, it's not exorbitant. This is not the kind of thing where you have to go to a museum and be like, this doesn't make sense to me. You look at it right away, you're like, okay, I know what this is, and it's beautiful. It's awesome. And you're supporting someone who's young and creative, trying to do something and make the world a better place. So I'm a big fan of the contemporary art scene. A lot of it is not great, but even the stuff that's not great is very rarely disgusting or gross. It's just like, okay, I've seen this before, something like that.

• 1:03:24Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:03:25Michael Malice?

  It's like there was, there's like a stand-up where like, I'll pay money for the ticket, and someone's like, who's an opener? It's like, I wouldn't pay to see him perform, but he sure still made me laugh. That person is still more, by far more good than bad. So a lot of this artist and stuff I would own, but it's like, okay, I get it. I like it.

• 1:03:42Lex Fridman?

  Well, as the analogy goes, I really like going to open mics, actually, because like, fun, it sounds absurd to say, but funny isn't the only thing that's beautiful about stand-up comedy. It's the act.

• 1:03:55Michael Malice?

  The agony.

• 1:03:57Lex Fridman?

  The, it's, it's going for it. It's trying to be funny. It's taking the leap. Trying the joke and some of the best stuff is actually funny, but the audience is like three people, two of whom are drunk and bored and you're still going for it. And that's like, that's the human spirit right there.

• 1:04:16Michael Malice?

  Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Gottfried go on, it was like three in the morning and it was like five, her and like three other comics in the audience and like they all were just dying, like he was just killing them. Who's your favorite comedian?

• 1:04:34Lex Fridman?

  Dave Smith.

• 1:04:35Michael Malice?

  Who?

• 1:04:37Lex Fridman?

  And cut scene. Favorite comedian, first on Norm MacDonald, if you like, put a gun to my head and I had to answer really quickly, that would be him.

• 1:04:45Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:04:48Lex Fridman?

  I would also say Louis CK.

• 1:04:50Michael Malice?

  Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, my God.

• 1:04:53Lex Fridman?

  But that's almost like a vanilla answer at this moment in, in history because it's like, uh.

• 1:04:57Michael Malice?

  Louis CK is pretty radioactive.

• 1:04:59Lex Fridman?

  He is. Well, yeah, he does it. The tough topics.

• 1:05:02Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 1:05:03Lex Fridman?

  The best. Mitch Hedberg, the wit of a good one liner. It's great. I guess that's what Norm MacDonald's genius is at. What about you?

• 1:05:13Michael Malice?

  There's, I mean, we're so fortunate to be here in Austin because that comedy mothership, you go there and like people are just killing it. David Lucas is amazing. Ty Rivera, Ty Rivera probably did the best set I've seen since I've been here in Austin and I, I watched him and I'm like, this guy's even like even bitchier than I am. So I reached out to him. So he's just terrific. David Lucas is another one, a buddy of mine.

• 1:05:38Lex Fridman?

  You just said it twice, I think.

• 1:05:41Michael Malice?

  I'm thinking, Dave Landau, excuse me, Dave Landau, Joe Mackey. It's true, though.

• 1:05:46Lex Fridman?

  It's true.

• 1:05:47Michael Malice?

  It's true.

• 1:05:48Lex Fridman?

  It's true.

• 1:05:49Michael Malice?

  David Lucas.

• 1:05:51Lex Fridman?

  You ever been to the comedy mothership? It's a great, it's a great spot.

• 1:05:54Michael Malice?

  Where is that? Is that in Austin?

• 1:05:56Lex Fridman?

  Austin. Is that where Willie Nelson is from? I haven't really, go ahead.

• 1:06:00Michael Malice?

  Oh, I heard a joke about that, uh, the other week.

• 1:06:03Lex Fridman?

  What's the, tell the, tell the joke again.

• 1:06:06Michael Malice?

  What's the only thing worse than giving head to Willie Nelson?

• 1:06:12Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 1:06:13Michael Malice?

  If he says, I'm not Willie Nelson.

• 1:06:17Lex Fridman?

  What's that, Mr. Parrot? I know he's not funny. He's better, he thinks he's better on Twitter. But that's not nice to say, right in front of his face. Just think how he feels.

• 1:06:30Michael Malice?

  The statues, Chance Murmer is judging you.

• 1:06:32Lex Fridman?

  Chance.

• 1:06:33Michael Malice?

  It's called Chance Murmer.

• 1:06:35Lex Fridman?

  Chance Murmer.

• 1:06:36Michael Malice?

  God, that's so beautiful.

• 1:06:37Lex Fridman?

  That's gorgeous.

• 1:06:38Michael Malice?

  This is, this is another reason I hate cynicism, and I talk about this a lot. Even just on Etsy, there are so many small, not huge companies, like individual artisans who are creating great stuff and just making it happen. And it's really sad for me where people can't see that. Or if they're like, well, how could I be excited about a sculpture when blah, blah, blah, the Middle East? And it's just like, you can always look for an excuse not to look for joy, or you could look for an excuse to look for joy.

• 1:07:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that seems incredible. I feel the same way about OnlyFans. I can't even get that out of my mouth before laughing at my own failed joke.

• 1:07:15Michael Malice?

  That's what she said.

• 1:07:16Lex Fridman?

  Edit, oh. All right. That might be one of the first, that's what she said from Michael Malice.

• 1:07:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Lex Fridman?

  I'm gonna count that.

• 1:07:29Michael Malice?

  I don't know what I'm gonna do with mine, because I got my own. Mine's three feet tall, just like me.

• 1:07:33Lex Fridman?

  Your box was much bigger.

• 1:07:34Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Lex Fridman?

  And it was giving me an inferiority complex. I think I'm gonna invade Russia. That's a Napoleon reference. For those in the audience.

• 1:07:50Michael Malice?

  I don't know if I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna put it in my bedroom, so it's the first thing I see when I wake up.

• 1:07:54Lex Fridman?

  Put it in the bedroom?

• 1:07:54Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Lex Fridman?

  Do we get through everything we're thankful for?

• 1:08:00Michael Malice?

  No, I've got lots of things I'm thankful for.

• 1:08:01Lex Fridman?

  What else? Friends, family, we said books.

• 1:08:06Michael Malice?

  I'm thankful for career. I'm thankful for, I am thankful for, and I know people are gonna lose their minds, and I can hear them flipping out already. I am thankful for social media.

• 1:08:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Michael Malice?

  I think for several reasons. First, it is a way for people to make connections that they couldn't have made in years past. That if you got some weird hobby, you can find that other person's weird hobby and you make that connection. It's a great way to stay in touch permanently for people otherwise you'd lose touch with, you know, whatever venue. And it's also a great way to expose corporate depravity. When you have these organizations that are dishonest, I think the community notes thing on Twitter is the greatest thing ever.

• 1:08:50Lex Fridman?

  That's incredible. I wish they would pay attention to the Michael Mouse account more often.

• 1:08:55Michael Malice?

  You shouldn't be encouraging anyone to pay attention to my Twitter account.

• 1:08:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:59Michael Malice?

  It's a dumpster fire. And I don't mean Bridget, I mean like literal Bridget Fettis.

• 1:09:04Lex Fridman?

  Bridget, by the way, is amazing. But your Twitter account makes, yes, not here. I wish she did.

• 1:09:10Michael Malice?

  She's in Georgetown.

• 1:09:11Lex Fridman?

  No, I mean, in this, where we're sitting. It's a joke, Michael.

• 1:09:14Michael Malice?

  Is it?

• 1:09:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Michael Malice?

  But I'm just really glad about, it's another way for people who before would have felt very alone. I know it makes, some people do feel alone, but for other people, it makes them feel connected.

• 1:09:26Lex Fridman?

  There's been a lot of talk about antisemitism recently.

• 1:09:30Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Lex Fridman?

  What's, what's your sense about this? Is there, is antisemitism like any other brand of hate? There's a lot of hate out there.

• 1:09:38Michael Malice?

  No, I don't think it's like any other brand of hate. Because I don't think racists, or transphobes, or homophobes, or misogynists, or xenophobes argue openly, or even not so openly, for the killing of black Americans, transgender people, gay people, women, or immigrants. And it's not only something that's talked about, it's something that has actually happened. And not just the Holocaust, but just centuries of pogroms. Right? There's this great book that I read many years ago called The Satanization of the Jews. Camille Paglia recommended it and I read it. And they live in this, this certain, specific kind of antisemitism. And I'm, again,

• 1:10:23Michael Malice?

  I'm not talking about people who are against Israel or something. I'm talking specifically about Jew hatred. They have this moral calculus that Jews are the only people who are capable of good or evil, and Jews are exclusively capable of evil. And for example, if you look at The George W. Bush White House. You had W., you had Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, a lot of these neocon advisors. So if there's 10 people in a room and there's one Jewish person, it's his fault and the rest are Jew-controlled. So again, they only exist as a puppet of Jews in this kind of worldview. And it's like that, to me, if there were no Jews on earth,

• 1:11:08Michael Malice?

  it is crazy to say that John Bolton and Liz Cheney and Lindsey Graham wouldn't be pushing for more war. That makes no sense to me. It's like you blame the Jews when bad things happen, but when a Jewish person does something good, it doesn't really matter. Or just wait, he's gonna do something bad. Well, yeah, that's true. Human beings do good things and then they do bad things sometimes. But it only counts when that Jewish person does the bad thing.

• 1:11:39Lex Fridman?

  I wonder what's a way to fight antisemitism and fight hate in general?

• 1:11:43Michael Malice?

  I think the only, or the best way, because I thought a lot about this, about how did gay Americans go from being universally hated and despised to the point that many people in the 80s went to their graves, those who had AIDS, without even telling their parents because they were so scared, to now Times Square is just covered in pride flags. And I think, and this also works for Islamophobia and some of these other bigotry, is what I call the ambassador program. Because as soon as you know someone who is a member of a certain group, it is a lot harder to be bigoted against them.

• 1:12:26Michael Malice?

  Because instead of this being this out group that's somewhere out there, it's like, wait a minute, I work with this guy. Yeah, he's kind of a jerk. Maybe he sees things a little differently than me, but this guy is not a horrible human being. So I think the only way to fight any form of bigotry is to be a good example of the counter to these, whatever archetype or stereotype is in the culture.

• 1:12:54Lex Fridman?

  Karl Marx wrote that religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people, as the famous phrase goes. Do you think he has a point?

• 1:13:07Michael Malice?

  No, I hate that quote. I absolutely hate it. I despise this sort of Reddit internet atheist activism for the simple reason that I know many people who, in finding faith, have become objectively better human beings. They start living consciously. They take morality seriously. They try, we all fail, to be moral, good people. So this sneering that these midwits, these marginally intelligent people have towards religious people. Now, lots of religious people use religion to rationalize their bad behavior or sinful or big egos, so on and so forth.

• 1:13:53Michael Malice?

  That exists, that's true. But to say that it never helps anyone and it's universally the... See, Marx was talking about a period, I mean, I'll defend his quote, when his argument was, you know, the masses are being starved and oppressed, but they're promised, don't worry, you'll have riches in heaven. So you should kind of like let yourself be pushed around now. And this is kind of this BS bargain that the people are being given. So that was, I think, the point he was making. It's not, it certainly doesn't apply nowadays. I've been close to the family in the Midwest. They're good Christian people. I remember very specifically this guy, shout out to him, Shawn Sheridan.

• 1:14:37Michael Malice?

  I went to college with him, David Lucas. And...

• 1:14:42Lex Fridman?

  Have you checked out the comedy mothership? Great, great club.

• 1:14:44Michael Malice?

  Where is it, Austin?

• 1:14:46Lex Fridman?

  Willie Nelson.

• 1:14:46Michael Malice?

  And I, you know, I was 17, 18, freshman year. And I was reading all this criticism of the Bible. And I was like, look, this is in there, look at this in there. And he put his hand on my shoulder and he says, Michael, there's nothing you're going to tell me that's going to make me lose my faith. And that was a very self-aware and profound thing to say. As I've gotten older and I know lots of religious people, there's no part of me that thinks they're wrong or they should be mocked. It's like... It also reminds me of when people sneer at addicts in recovery. They're like alcoholism is a disease, it's a choice. It's like, wait a minute, you don't know what it's like to have your entire life ruined by drugs or alcohol.

• 1:15:29Michael Malice?

  And if you have to tell yourself, you know, I have this disease and blah, blah, blah. And that keeps you from drinking and now you're a moral, upstanding person who's reliable and takes responsibility for their actions. I don't see the harm at all. So I think this kind of activist atheism is cheap. I don't agree with it whatsoever, and I do not like that quote at all.

• 1:15:53Lex Fridman?

  But otherwise, big fan of Marx.

• 1:15:55Michael Malice?

  I mean, it's, I think there's a fan of mine, I forget who it was, apologies. He had this great quote, he goes, and this is me talking. He goes, the games people play to feel smarter than others is depressing and annoying. And I think this kind of fedora internet atheism is a good example. Because here's the other thing, if you've proven that someone else is stupid, that doesn't mean you're smart. You could both be stupid. So congrats, you proved someone else is stupid. Who cares?

• 1:16:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and sneering in all forms.

• 1:16:26Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:16:26Lex Fridman?

  General is just not great.

• 1:16:29Michael Malice?

  That's one of the things I block out people on social media instantly. You're not going to sneer at me in my space. You can stare at me all you want in your space, but I'm not putting up with your crap. I don't know you.

• 1:16:38Lex Fridman?

  My space, great social network.

• 1:16:41Michael Malice?

  Is that on Sixth Street?

• 1:16:45Lex Fridman?

  Awo.com.

• 1:16:50Michael Malice?

  That's how Lex comes.

• 1:16:53Lex Fridman?

  Like a Pavlov's dog. That was the sound before you get to see, spend 10 minutes waiting for an image of a lady load. One line at a time.

• 1:17:10Lex Fridman?

  I recently talked to John Mearsheimer. I don't know if you know him at all. So he has this idea about offensive realism. It's a way to analyze the world, international relations. And the basic idea, and I'll run it by you and see what you think, is that states, nations want to survive. And they try to do so by maximizing power, military power. And he talks about anarchy quite a bit in that one of the underlying assumptions of this way of viewing the world is that states are anarchic towards each other.

• 1:17:51Michael Malice?

  Yes, that's true.

• 1:17:52Lex Fridman?

  And they operate under a lot of uncertainty. States cannot be sure that other states will not use military capabilities against them.

• 1:17:59Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:18:00Lex Fridman?

  They want to survive. And they want to use military power to control the uncertainty, to protect themselves.

• 1:18:10Michael Malice?

  So I disagree in that regard. And I see on your bookshelf. I think the world is a lot closer to Brave New World than it is to 1984. And I think it is, if you look at, let's suppose China's influence in America, right? The influence is far more through soft power than military power. China doesn't threaten America through, you know, we're going to kill you. It's more like their infiltration of universities, TikTok, things of that nature. Maybe this would have worked before the pop culture era. But I think one of the reasons we have this kind of American hegemony isn't just a function of American military. I think it's much more a function of American popular culture.

• 1:18:55Michael Malice?

  When you're exporting ideas and culture, it makes other people in other countries feel closer to you and also feel regard you as a friend and also to adopt your values. It's a great way to spread propaganda.

• 1:19:09Lex Fridman?

  It seems to correlate though, right? It's interesting. It's an interesting idea. What has more power? The viral spread of ideas or the?

• 1:19:19Lex Fridman?

  The power of the military. It seems that the United States is at the top of the world on both.

• 1:19:25Michael Malice?

  That's true.

• 1:19:26Lex Fridman?

  And so it's hard to disentangle the two.

• 1:19:29Michael Malice?

  Let's look at Europe. American culture is very popular in Europe in many ways, right? Like, the best music comes out of Sweden, Swedish indie pop. They're singing in English, you know, even though so on and so forth. None of this is a function, maybe it's a function of post-World War II to some extent, but I don't think it's a function of American bases there. I think it's a function of we're exporting our music, our TV shows and our movies.

• 1:19:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's interesting if the battleground will be brave new world, the battle of ideas.

• 1:19:59Michael Malice?

  I think it's clearly brave new world. I, I, I, it's so much cheaper. And again, this is one of the dark sides of social media, to use influence than it is to use threats. I don't think, I think COVID is a good example of this. Like, so much of the pressure, yes, there was authoritarianism, but it was the fact that everyone bought into it, rightly or wrongly. But the vast majority of the population was behind all of these things. And that was through persuasion, not because, and because people are begging for it to come back in many cases.

• 1:20:28Lex Fridman?

  So who's funding you? Which intelligence agency?

• 1:20:31Michael Malice?

  Mossad.

• 1:20:32Lex Fridman?

  Mossad. Mossad. This is how you do great interviewing. See, he didn't even expect that. Okay.

• 1:20:42Michael Malice?

  What's that, Mr. Parrot?

• 1:20:44Lex Fridman?

  Mr. Parrot? You knew it. But you didn't have any documentation, did you?

• 1:20:51Michael Malice?

  I think Mr. Parrot is threatened by the better wings. A chance murmur.

• 1:20:56Lex Fridman?

  He gets like that when he's turned on. He's not threatened. You can't wait until he's, all three of us alone together. It's gonna be one hell of a party.

• 1:21:06Michael Malice?

  Beaks and feathers everywhere.

• 1:21:07Lex Fridman?

  And metal.

• 1:21:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, this thing is beautiful.

• 1:21:13Michael Malice?

  It's ridiculous.

• 1:21:15Lex Fridman?

  You have, you have actually a lot of really cool stuff at your, at your place.

• 1:21:18Michael Malice?

  So fun.

• 1:21:19Lex Fridman?

  What, um, what's a, what's a cool thing that stands out to you, maybe a recent addition?

• 1:21:25Michael Malice?

  So I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last year for my birthday. And there was a painting I liked and I Googled it and I saw the auction for that exact painting. And it was like, I think three grand, which is not cheap, but not something you think, you think in a museum, I can never afford something like this, right? So when I was in, um, I went to Houston with some friends, the side surfers, Natalie, who made the cake of you.

• 1:21:55Lex Fridman?

  Cake terrified my mom.

• 1:21:58Michael Malice?

  This, it did it?

• 1:21:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Michael Malice?

  Huh?

• 1:22:00Lex Fridman?

  No, it's not the cake that terrified my mom. It's you, Michael Malice, cutting it off, cutting the face off and laughing maniacally.

• 1:22:11Michael Malice?

  Well, Natalie's pregnant, she's gonna have a daughter named Daisy, so congrats to Natalie. But I was in the museum with them and there was a statue of Thoth, who is the Egyptian god, whose head is an ibis, it's a bird with a long beak. And Thoth is the god of the moon, god of knowledge, and supposedly he invented writing. So I thought, you know what, I've always loved ancient Egypt, I know a lot about it, and especially the mythology. It would be really cool as an aspiring author to have an ancient Egyptian Thoth statue in my house. Well, it turned out that the Egyptians also killed and mummified ibises and buried them with scribes.

• 1:22:53Michael Malice?

  And a week after I went to the museum, there was an auction for an ibis mummy. And I have it now in my house, still in its bandages, overlooking my desk. And we all know it's gonna come to life and peck out my eyes.

• 1:23:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:08Michael Malice?

  And write with my blood, but that is one of the recent cool additions. Another thing I have, which is like in terms of, holy crap, I've made it. I have an original Patrick Nagel painting. And if people don't know the name, he's like the eighties artist. He did Duran Duran cover, we never see him in nail salons. I have a male, which were very rare for him to do. So that's two of my kind of favorite pieces.

• 1:23:30Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 1:23:30Michael Malice?

  He only drew women predominantly. I have one where he drew a male, like as a guy in a, like a jean hat or something.

• 1:23:37Michael Malice?

  And now I'm looking forward to, so Jake made me a three foot tall sculpture called Future Murmur, which I am ecstatic to get.

• 1:23:47Lex Fridman?

  Just remind yourself, how many fascinating, beautiful people that are out there?

• 1:23:55Michael Malice?

  And just the victory and holiness and technology and speed. And how many people have, you know, fought so that I could do what I do?

• 1:24:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's another thing I'm grateful for. Just like the hundred billion or so people that came before us.

• 1:24:13Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Lex Fridman?

  And also the trillions of life forms that came before that.

• 1:24:19Michael Malice?

  Oh, God, I've gone down this, this Trilobite rabbit hole, buying fossils. Cause as a kid, I thought Trilobites were the coolest thing and I've got like 15.

• 1:24:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:28Michael Malice?

  And what's interesting is when you buy Trilobite fossils on eBay, they're listed as used.

• 1:24:35Michael Malice?

  Cause it's gotta be newer used and according to the programmings that's used, yeah.

• 1:24:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but just look, thinking about all that history, just all the life forms that came before. It seems like a really special thing we have going on earth here.

• 1:24:51Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, I think that's, that's very fair to say.

• 1:24:56Michael Malice?

  But I also think this kind of is like live life to the fullest. You know, Camus talked about living to the point of tears.

• 1:25:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:04Michael Malice?

  Especially on behalf of people who didn't have that privilege. So, you know, I dedicated the white pill to my parents who got me out of the Soviet Union and all the kids who never could. And it's like, when I die, I want everyone else to, not only they're obviously going to be happy, but yeah, like I'm not here, enjoy what you, you live for me, cause I can't have that privilege anymore.

• 1:25:25Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about Camus' A Writer?

• 1:25:28Michael Malice?

  I don't like his novels at all.

• 1:25:30Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you don't?

• 1:25:30Michael Malice?

  At all.

• 1:25:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you've talked shit about The Plague to me.

• 1:25:33Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I didn't, I think the book is pointless.

• 1:25:36Lex Fridman?

  Fascinating.

• 1:25:37Michael Malice?

  Cause all you need to do is read the synopsis and then you get it. Like, I don't think his book-

• 1:25:41Lex Fridman?

  Isn't that true for most books?

• 1:25:42Michael Malice?

  No.

• 1:25:43Lex Fridman?

  I mean, like, you could take, I don't know, I just don't agree at all. There, I mean, it's, it's Catcher in the Rye. There's a lot of books that are, seem trivial.

• 1:25:52Michael Malice?

  I don't think it seems trivial, but I think-

• 1:25:54Lex Fridman?

  Animal Farm.

• 1:25:56Michael Malice?

  Animal Farm is a methodical, step-by-step examination of a transformation from one thing to another. The plague is not that.

• 1:26:04Lex Fridman?

  It's a methodical examination of what a society is like under the plague, which could symbolize a lot of things, including the plague directly, or Nazi Germany, or ideological movements. It's similar to Animal Farm, maybe not as effective in terms of using this kind of symbology.

• 1:26:25Michael Malice?

  I think Animal Farm has a narrative, and I'm gonna spoil the whole plague, the book The Plague.

• 1:26:30Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:26:31Michael Malice?

  There's a town, I believe, in Oman. A plague descends. People struggle to deal with it, and the plague vanishes as quickly as it came. The end.

• 1:26:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but there's the victims, the people that take advantage of it. There's the doctor that amidst the absurdity and the evil of the plague is fighting to do good.

• 1:26:52Michael Malice?

  Nothing from me. Does nothing.

• 1:26:53Lex Fridman?

  Okay, well, I could spoil Animal Farm. There's pigs. There's animals at a farm. And the humans are abusing them. And then the animals overthrow the humans. But then

• 1:27:10Lex Fridman?

  the pigs become just like the humans. The lesson, kids, is that power corrupts no matter whether you walk on four or on two.

• 1:27:21Michael Malice?

  I thought the lesson was that pigs are the most human-like animals on the farm.

• 1:27:26Lex Fridman?

  I thought the lesson was that there's no sugar-candy mountain.

• 1:27:31Michael Malice?

  That's right.

• 1:27:33Lex Fridman?

  You've interviewed a lot of people.

• 1:27:35Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:35Lex Fridman?

  What have you learned about getting to the soul of a person, the soul of an idea, from interviewing? Just how to do a good interview.

• 1:27:45Michael Malice?

  First of all, I'm not interviewing just random people. I'm interviewing people who are accomplished. It's not a random group that's self-selecting for something different. But I think that people love to, and this is very understandable, love to feel seen.

• 1:28:00Michael Malice?

  So if you're someone who's done something, even if you're like the best guinea pig breeder in America, to have someone interested in your work and ask and listen to what you're saying, because I remember every book I've written, you know, I have friends and I wouldn't stop talking about, you know, the, the, the person I'm writing with or, you know, the North Korea. And at a certain point, I'm sure they're like, all right, I don't care about this anymore. But like, it takes over your brain. You know what I mean? So if you are someone who has an interest or a hobby, I'm sure to some extent, maybe your friends or family are sick of talking about it, or you don't want to talk about with them. You want to have, that's the private life where you could just be yourself. So I try to, and this comes from my co-authoring background, when I'm talking to people to ask the questions

• 1:28:42Michael Malice?

  that they haven't heard before. There's a possibility that this actor I'm a huge fan of is going to be on my show. I don't want to spoil everything. And he's got a very specific role that he's known for. And I know I'm gonna, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, I know it's gonna be annoying for you to talk about this one role, but my goal is to ask questions that haven't, you have, aren't sick of asking, having been asked.

• 1:29:09Lex Fridman?

  Porn star or?

• 1:29:10Michael Malice?

  Uh, not a porn star.

• 1:29:13Lex Fridman?

  That joke failed also. Edit out. What do you know about breeding guinea pigs? You mentioned it. I'd love to hear.

• 1:29:22Michael Malice?

  I don't know anything.

• 1:29:23Lex Fridman?

  I'd love to hear more about it.

• 1:29:25Michael Malice?

  This is, I always use this as an example. I said, there's, there's, you meet someone at a party who breeds guinea pigs, right? There's two approaches. Either you're weird, get it, okay? Or sit down and tell me everything.

• 1:29:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Michael Malice?

  And I'm very much, and all the people I like are the second group. When you meet someone who's doing something unusual and are passionate about it and, you know, are good at it, like, that to me is the mother lode.

• 1:29:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that to me also is the thing I enjoy the most. It's like,

• 1:29:56Michael Malice?

  Because and then it's like, who you guys hate? Do you guys hate the hamster people? Do you hate the rabbit people? There's got to be someone that you guys look down on. Because like the marine aquarium people look down the freshwater aquarium people.

• 1:30:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's a hierarchy.

• 1:30:07Michael Malice?

  Yes, there's always going to be a hierarchy. This is where the left anarchists and I disagree because they think you can have egalitarianism. There's going to be a hierarchy.

• 1:30:14Lex Fridman?

  Hierarchies emerge.

• 1:30:15Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:30:16Lex Fridman?

  There's no anarchy in the guinea pig world.

• 1:30:19Michael Malice?

  No, it's just a different kind of anarchy.

• 1:30:22Lex Fridman?

  Somebody's always breeding somebody else.

• 1:30:24Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:30:25Lex Fridman?

  And looking down on the others.

• 1:30:28Michael Malice?

  Yes, someone's the other.

• 1:30:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:30Michael Malice?

  Whether it's the hamster people, the rat people.

• 1:30:31Lex Fridman?

  And everybody's breeding.

• 1:30:33Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Lex Fridman?

  By the way, are you anarcho-capitalist? What kind of, what flavor of anarchist are you?

• 1:30:40Michael Malice?

  I'm an anarchist without adjectives. I like them all. The black flag comes in many colors.

• 1:30:44Lex Fridman?

  All right, all right. You're quoting your, yeah, no, I understand. It was, it's a beautiful line in the book.

• 1:30:49Michael Malice?

  Thank you. I think the anarcho-capitalists don't give the left anarchists enough credit, especially for their courage. And I do whatever I can in my power to talk about people like Emma Goldman whenever possible.

• 1:31:05Lex Fridman?

  Do you still think that are some people better than others is a good litmus test?

• 1:31:10Michael Malice?

  Yes, it's worked 100% of the time.

• 1:31:13Lex Fridman?

  And for you, the answer is yes.

• 1:31:15Michael Malice?

  I never answer.

• 1:31:19Lex Fridman?

  There's two of them.

• 1:31:23Michael Malice?

  What are you getting all Hitchcock up in here?

• 1:31:27Lex Fridman?

  Oh, hey, careful. I always got your back. What little habits in your life make you happy? Now that you're in Austin.

• 1:31:40Michael Malice?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:31:45Michael Malice?

  I was prepping for this interview and I imagined this coming up. And I knew that as I explained this, you know how sometimes when someone tells a story, like at first it's amusing, then it's amusing and concerned. And then you're like, holy shit, like, like, where's the exit?

• 1:32:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I'm getting nervous already.

• 1:32:10Michael Malice?

  You should. So I'm going to tell you something I've told only a couple of people.

• 1:32:18Michael Malice?

  This is my absolutely off the charts autistic approach to shaving.

• 1:32:27Lex Fridman?

  Oh.

• 1:32:29Michael Malice?

  So I have this insane system. You asked about habits like you're me, Joe. I used to hate shaving. I used to hate it. There's something called wet shaving. So wet shaving is you get the brush, you get the soap that's in a canister.

• 1:32:45Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:46Michael Malice?

  Stir it up, you paint your face and then you shave. The thing is, there are dozens of these shaving soap companies.

• 1:32:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:56Michael Malice?

  Okay, so I tried a couple of hundred of these soaps because you're testing for scent. You're testing for what the lather thickness and also how smooth of a shave it gives you.

• 1:33:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:11Michael Malice?

  I have it down. I'm not making this up. I'm not this creative. I have it down to a cycle of sixty seven soaps.

• 1:33:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Michael Malice?

  Okay, so this.

• 1:33:21Lex Fridman?

  Cycle.

• 1:33:22Michael Malice?

  A cycle, so sixty seven.

• 1:33:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Michael Malice?

  When I use up one soap, that is a slot that I will have to try new ones. And I will try new ones in that slot until I get one that I like and then that slot is filled.

• 1:33:40Michael Malice?

  So right now I have sixty seven that I use and I have eighty six.

• 1:33:45Lex Fridman?

  Candidates, like in.

• 1:33:46Michael Malice?

  Candidates, yeah. In the, in the queue.

• 1:33:48Lex Fridman?

  Do you label them? Do you remember like which one is which?

• 1:33:50Michael Malice?

  Well, they, they all have beautiful labels. I mean, these are artisans who are creating these amazing things. So there, I would encourage everyone to try this hobby who's a guy. It's so much fun. I will give a shout outs to the companies that, that are the best. So the best company in my opinion is a company called, uh, they just changed the name because you know what they're originally called? I'm not joking.

• 1:34:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Michael Malice?

  Grooming Department.

• 1:34:17Michael Malice?

  And now it's like

• 1:34:18Lex Fridman?

  It's not a bad name.

• 1:34:19Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but it has certain connotations in contemporary discourse.

• 1:34:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I understand.

• 1:34:22Michael Malice?

  So now he changed

• 1:34:23Lex Fridman?

  Contemporary discourse, yes.

• 1:34:23Michael Malice?

  He changed his name to Ion Skincare, A I O N. That's the sense of the most sophisticated, the most diverse, and the soap is just really high quality. Another amazing company is Barrister and Man. And if I'm going to tell you to try one, it's called Sheshar. He comes out with new ones every month or so. A lot of it's miss, a lot of it's hit, just great, great quality stuff. Another great company is Chiseled Face. They make something called Midnight Stag, which basically smells like a garage. It's one of my favorite soaps of all time.

• 1:34:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, what makes for a good smell for Michael Miles?

• 1:35:00Michael Malice?

  I have 67 answers. So some of them smell Some are citrusy, some are industrial, some

• 1:35:08Lex Fridman?

  So garage is more industrial.

• 1:35:09Michael Malice?

  It smells like a garage, yeah. Midnight Stag, it smells like garage. Some are fun because there's smells that smell like other things. For example, there's a scent in my Q called Finding Scotty. It smells like Swedish fish. Another great company is Phoenix Shaving. And they have one called Aloha Smackdown, smells like Hawaiian punch. They had one called Yule Ham that they made for me special, smells like a ham. They had a ramen one, Rockin' Ramen, smells like cup of noodles. So they're a great, and every year they do an advent calendar where you, for 12 days, you have a little sample of a soap and a sample of the aftershave.

• 1:35:45Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 1:35:46Michael Malice?

  So those are, I'm forgetting someone and I'm feeling angry that I'm doing it. But those are some of the, oh, and Katie's Bubbles is great. They're vegan out of New Jersey. They've got one called Knee High to a Grape, smells like grape soda. I think those are the biggest names off the top of my head.

• 1:36:06Lex Fridman?

  Will that list converge down to a small set eventually or no? 67 down to?

• 1:36:12Michael Malice?

  Well, no, it's down to 67, so.

• 1:36:14Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so it's always keeps

• 1:36:16Michael Malice?

  Right, so there's a slot, then, you know what I mean? Like, I'll fill that, you understand what I'm saying?

• 1:36:19Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so you will forever have the variety of 67?

• 1:36:22Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:36:24Lex Fridman?

  Huh. You know, you know what? You know how sad my brain is when I, when you were telling me this? I was like, I wonder how many soaps are left in Michael Mouse's life? Like, you can count your life by days, by months, by years, or by soaps.

• 1:36:42Michael Malice?

  That is depressing. That is very dark.

• 1:36:44Lex Fridman?

  Because each, each experience of shaving is a little beautiful experience.

• 1:36:48Michael Malice?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:36:49Lex Fridman?

  And how many do you have left in your life, right?

• 1:36:51Michael Malice?

  That's true.

• 1:36:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Michael Malice?

  I gotta tell you, there's something else. There's a term called, my friend Jackie taught me called touching pan. It's a makeup term. So basically, when you use it and you could see the bottom, that's like a big moment.

• 1:37:04Lex Fridman?

  Oh, it's a great thing.

• 1:37:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it's like, well, it's kind of fun. I'm telling you, like, people can scoff. It is such a fun, and there's a lot of us online who are into this whole space. It's really, really fun.

• 1:37:15Lex Fridman?

  When did you first discover this?

• 1:37:17Michael Malice?

  Can I curse?

• 1:37:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:19Michael Malice?

  Fuck you, Cole Stryker. Because I was staying at my friend Cole's house in LA. Fuck you, Cole.

• 1:37:26Lex Fridman?

  Fuck you, Cole.

• 1:37:27Michael Malice?

  Cole is like one of the biggest hipsters I know. He's got the, the shirts with the pearl snaps and everything. And I'm staying at his house because I was doing Rogan. And he goes, oh, have you heard of this wet shaving thing? And he goes, look, this one's Pro Riso. That's like the Italian grandpa soap, which is also a great one. And I went down this rabbit hole and I'm like, I don't even know how many, how much money I spent on this. And it's all because of him.

• 1:37:49Lex Fridman?

  Oh, but it's like a happy fuck you, like fuck you, Cole. I love you, Cole. Fuck you. Thank you.

• 1:37:56Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:37:57Lex Fridman?

  That's a good idea for a tattoo. Fuck you, Cole.

• 1:38:01Lex Fridman?

  Uh, how, do you have advice on how to be happy?

• 1:38:06Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:38:07Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot of loneliness and sadness in the world.

• 1:38:11Michael Malice?

  Here, I can give a very easy piece of advice that worked a lot for me.

• 1:38:18Michael Malice?

  Instead of telling yourself.

• 1:38:22Michael Malice?

  That you have these ridiculous standards. Tell yourself, I can be better. Right? I don't have to be a great writer. I could be a better writer. I don't have to be a great podcaster. That will never happen. I could be a better podcaster. I could be a better person. I could be a better at the gym. I could be better with my time. And when you regard things in the, and especially if you have metrics that you can go by, you know, for example, I'll run this many miles a day, things you have control over. If you, especially as males, when you have this chart and the data is telling you you're improving, right away, it's like you have this sense of accomplishment. So I think that is a really great way to find.

• 1:39:05Michael Malice?

  And if something is not working in your life, let's suppose you don't have friends. Right? There's the internet. How do people make friends? Try things out. What's the worst that's gonna happen? You're gonna, does it blow up in your face? Well, you're, you're, you're learned something at least. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. When I was a kid, I was so scared of having things under control. So like, I would never have to get hit in the face, metaphorically. And then I realized, and you realize this as well, everyone who's important gets hit in the face. Look at the president, whoever the president is. It becomes a matter of being strong enough that you could take getting hit in the face. So that is a big important switch in your thinking.

• 1:39:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a Bukowski quote I wrote down. Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not gonna make it. But you laugh inside remembering all the times you felt that way.

• 1:39:57Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:58Lex Fridman?

  There's a part of me that's like that. There's some days where I feel like this is the worst day of my life. And then like shortly after, I think, like chuckle at that.

• 1:40:07Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:40:07Lex Fridman?

  Just knowing the ups and downs of the brain and the mind and life and all that. You ever been depressed?

• 1:40:13Michael Malice?

  Yeah, of course. I'm more anxious than depressed. I don't really get depressed. Like, yeah, but I've been depressed.

• 1:40:19Lex Fridman?

  Like low points?

• 1:40:20Michael Malice?

  Yeah. But I think, I distinguish depression between low points, right? Like if things are going bad and you feel bad, that makes sense. But I, when I think of depression, I think of someone who feels bad when things aren't bad. Like it's a it's by that to me, it's like almost by definition irrational.

• 1:40:36Lex Fridman?

  Well, yeah, and there's different kinds of I like there. There's a exhausted kind of depression where you're not. It's not so much sad is you're not don't want to do anything. You you don't want to live. You don't want to.

• 1:40:50Michael Malice?

  What's the? Yeah.

• 1:40:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What's the point? What's the point?

• 1:40:52Michael Malice?

  Wrap. Yeah.

• 1:40:54Lex Fridman?

  And like an extreme self critical negativity, which I'm also scared of because my brain is generally very self critical.

• 1:41:00Michael Malice?

  Because you're not taking up magnesium.

• 1:41:02Lex Fridman?

  Do you take rectally or in the mouth?

• 1:41:04Michael Malice?

  You take rectally.

• 1:41:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:41:06Michael Malice?

  But as for as for the magnesium, you should take it as a pill.

• 1:41:09Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Well, the way your mom explained it then is is way different.

• 1:41:16Lex Fridman?

  What are you most afraid of?

• 1:41:28Michael Malice?

  Holy crap, that's that's I I I'm trying to think of anything I'm afraid of.

• 1:41:32Lex Fridman?

  You know, in 1984.

• 1:41:34Michael Malice?

  With the I I thought like even.

• 1:41:37Lex Fridman?

  Like if I wanted to torture you hypothetically.

• 1:41:40Michael Malice?

  Well, you're doing well. Mission accomplished. You know what I mean? I mean, in terms of I I'm scared of increasing authoritarianism, but that's not personal. And that's not that's something that I don't think is as much of an imminent concern as like, let's say in Canada.

• 1:41:56Lex Fridman?

  Are you scared of death?

• 1:41:57Michael Malice?

  No.

• 1:42:00Lex Fridman?

  He came over scared of death.

• 1:42:01Michael Malice?

  No.

• 1:42:03Lex Fridman?

  He just accepted it as.

• 1:42:04Michael Malice?

  It's look, I I I can. I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow, I did pretty good with what I had. Like I I think I did things that mattered to me. I think I moved the needle on things that mattered to me. I think I've been a good friend to the people I care about. I've saved a couple of lives, so I I can. I I think it's a very low bar for someone to be able to go their grave and say, you know, I left the world a better place than I found it. I don't think it's that hard.

• 1:42:42Lex Fridman?

  You ever been betrayed?

• 1:42:43Michael Malice?

  Oh, God, yes, of course. Haven't you?

• 1:42:48Lex Fridman?

  Not as often as I would have predicted.

• 1:42:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah, the Russian upbringing expects everyone to be like, it's a time bomb before they betray you. I've been betrayed, of course, yeah.

• 1:42:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Do you value loyalty?

• 1:43:00Michael Malice?

  I do, and I also made it a point to not let that betrayal color my future interactions and regard that as the universal or the norm.

• 1:43:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Michael Malice?

  I think that's very important.

• 1:43:13Lex Fridman?

  Me too.

• 1:43:14Michael Malice?

  And also, I feel bad, I've gotten lax enough that I feel bad for the person who betrayed me, because it's just like, they didn't need to do this. And at some point, if you betray someone, you know, and you know you're not a good person. I believe that.

• 1:43:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Michael Malice?

  Like, even if you tell yourself, this is something I had to do, you still know you had to do a bad thing to someone who didn't deserve it. And that's a really hard pill to swallow.

• 1:43:43Lex Fridman?

  In my situation, I still think good thoughts and empathize with the people that have done me wrong.

• 1:43:51Michael Malice?

  I don't empathize with them, but I sympathize with them.

• 1:43:55Lex Fridman?

  My English is not good enough to know the difference.

• 1:43:57Michael Malice?

  Empathizing means you're putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathizing means you feel bad for them and wish them well.

• 1:44:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I wish them well.

• 1:44:08Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but I don't put myself, like, it's very hard for me to empathize with someone who betrays someone that they care about. Because that is something, it's not that just I think I'm such a great person, it's that I feel guilt very strongly. So if I did that to someone who trusted me, I would really, it would fuck up my head for a long time.

• 1:44:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but maybe they were in pain.

• 1:44:30Lex Fridman?

  Maybe they were desperate, maybe they were back to the wall. They felt that way.

• 1:44:35Michael Malice?

  Well, that's a sympathy thing, not really an empathy thing.

• 1:44:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. Loyalty is a fascinating thing.

• 1:44:44Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:44:45Lex Fridman?

  I value trust a lot.

• 1:44:46Michael Malice?

  I know you do. Especially because you're in such a public, both of us were, you know, very public positions. You have to be very careful who you surround yourself with.

• 1:44:54Lex Fridman?

  It sucks.

• 1:44:55Michael Malice?

  Does it? Well, it's

• 1:44:57Lex Fridman?

  It sucks because it's hard to, uh...

• 1:45:04Lex Fridman?

  I usually just trust everybody.

• 1:45:06Michael Malice?

  That's okay. That's crazy.

• 1:45:09Lex Fridman?

  But what's the alternative?

• 1:45:11Michael Malice?

  To be, have a filter?

• 1:45:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, I have a filter in terms of who I interact with.

• 1:45:16Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:45:16Lex Fridman?

  But within the, you know, I see the good in people, but then you

• 1:45:22Lex Fridman?

  in the, in the very rare instances that might turn.

• 1:45:25Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:45:26Lex Fridman?

  And yeah, it just sucks. It breaks my heart.

• 1:45:29Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I hear you. I completely agree.

• 1:45:32Lex Fridman?

  Has your heart ever been broken?

• 1:45:35Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:45:36Lex Fridman?

  Love?

• 1:45:37Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:45:42Lex Fridman?

  I'm just so relaxed right now.

• 1:45:43Michael Malice?

  Good.

• 1:45:45Lex Fridman?

  Relaxing and happy.

• 1:45:46Michael Malice?

  Good.

• 1:45:46Lex Fridman?

  This is making me really happy.

• 1:45:48Michael Malice?

  It's so, it, it, again, it's beautiful on like eight different levels.

• 1:45:52Lex Fridman?

  I think that's the deepest thing I'm thankful for. It's just how beautiful people are. How beautiful the world is.

• 1:46:00Michael Malice?

  I really, and people are gonna laugh and I welcome it. That's fine. I really sometimes feel like the guy in American Beauty looking at the plastic bag dancing in the wind and he's brought to tears because of how much beautiful life is. And a lot of people feel the need to sneer at that scene and, and Ricky, Ricky Pitts, whatever. And I think he's got it exactly right.

• 1:46:26Lex Fridman?

  I think he does too.

• 1:46:30Lex Fridman?

  Well, in the end, you and I will be both laughing.

• 1:46:33Michael Malice?

  That's exact, and right, and also seeing beauty where others people see garbage. And I'd rather be the person who sees beauty than the person who sees garbage.

• 1:46:43Lex Fridman?

  Yep. Well, when I look at you, I see beauty. And most people see garbage. And it's really unfair, Mr. Parrot, that you keep saying that.

• 1:46:57Michael Malice?

  What?

• 1:46:57Lex Fridman?

  All jokes aside, man, I'm really grateful for your friendship and I'm really grateful for you as a person. Thank you so much for talking today. Thank you so much for talking to me throughout all these years. Thank you for being who you are.

• 1:47:09Michael Malice?

  You are welcome.

• 1:47:12Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Andre Gaid.

• 1:47:23Lex Fridman?

  Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

• 1:47:31Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time. (Music)